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Chapter EXAM PRACTICE

Multiple-Choice Questions
Choose the correct answer for each question.

Questions 1–3 refer to the passage.

Oh unsurpassed generosity of God the Father, Oh wondrous and unsurpassable felicity
of man, to whom it is granted to have what he chooses, to be what he wills to be! The
brutes, from the moment of their birth, bring with them, as Lucilius [a classical Roman
author] says, “from their mother’s womb” all that they will ever possess. The highest
spiritual beings were, from the very moment of creation, or soon thereafter, fixed in the
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mode of being which would be theirs through measureless eternities. But upon man,
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at the moment of his creation, God bestowed seeds pregnant with all possibilities, the
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germs of every form of life. Whichever of these a man shall cultivate, the same will
mature and bear fruit in him. If vegetative, he will become a plant; if sensual, he will
become brutish; if rational, he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual, he
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will be an angel and the son of God. And if, dissatisfied with the lot of all creatures, he
should recollect himself into the center of his own unity, he will there become one spirit
with God, in the solitary darkness of the Father, Who is set above all things, himself
transcend all creatures. Who then will not look with awe upon this our chameleon, or
who, at least, will look with greater admiration on any other being?

— Pico della Mirandola, “Oration on the Dignity of Man,” 1486
1. A historian could best use the “Oration on the Dignity of Man” as evidence for which
of the following features of Renaissance intellectual life?
(A) Continued influence of church doctrine on interpretations of classical humanist ideas
(B) Rejection of church influence on philosophy and political ideals
(C) Continued influence of feudalism and ideas of class on humanist ideas
(D) Increased importance of the pope in the ideas of Renaissance humanists

2. The passage most strongly supports the influence of which idea on fifteenth-century
Renaissance thought?
(A) Scholasticism
(B) Orientalism
(C) Humanism
(D) Secularism
3. Based on the passage, how did Pico della Mirandola and other Renaissance-era
thinkers challenge the beliefs supported by traditional authorities in Europe in the
fifteenth century?
(A) They challenged the right of monarchs to rule over subjects using ideas of divine
right to rule.
(B) They challenged the inequalities between men and women that were supported by
the Catholic Church.
(C) They challenged the idea of racism by arguing for the equality of all people.

(D) They challenged the idea that man should be limited by the idea of original sin,
instead arguing for the glorification of man.
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