Thursday, October 19, 2006

A quiz on Italian literature

I just ran across this quiz on Italian literature at the Guardian's website.

How did I do? Miserably: I flunked.

Even worse, I was only absolutely positive of one answer and almost positive about another (but thought maybe it was a trick because the correct answer was so obvious). My other correct answers were largely the result of luck.

Then again, several of the questions were the sort of trivia that could stump even a well-informed scholar of Italian literature. (That's my story and I'm sticking to it.) One such question, which I got wrong:
Petrarch wrote that he received two invitations to accept the crown of poet laureate on the same day. He accepted the one from Rome. Who issued the other?

__ Florence
__ Brandenberg
__ London
__ Paris
--Marshal Zeringue