Practice question · True or false
Homer reached most Renaissance painters directly in the original Greek.
Hints
- Ask how widely Greek was read compared with Latin.
- Homer arrived in translation and often at second hand.
Show the answer
False
Why
False. Greek was read by far fewer people than Latin, so Homer arrived through translations and through the mythographic handbooks. That is one reason Ovid dominates: he was available in the language that educated Europe actually read.
Practise Greco-Roman Sources I: the Gods and Their Texts
The app has 4 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Art History I is free to start.
More questions on Greco-Roman Sources I: the Gods and Their Texts
- Why do Renaissance mythological paintings use Roman rather than Greek names for the gods?
- Which are reasons patrons commissioned mythological subjects?
- Sort each attribute by the deity it identifies.
- The Ovide moralisé read the Metamorphoses as Christian allegory.
- How many books does Ovid's Metamorphoses contain?
- Complete the account of the classical sources.
- Match each classical text to what painters took from it.
- Arrange the steps of identifying a mythological subject, in order.
- Renaissance patrons commissioned depictions of pagan deities without compromising their Christian faith.…