Context: In the late renaissance various writers began to question the medieval and classical understanding of knowledge acquisition in a more fundamental way. In political and historical writing Niccolò Machiavelli and his friend Francesco Guicciardini initiated a new realistic style of writing. Machiavelli in particular was scornful of writers on politics who judged everything in comparison to mental ideals and demanded that people should study the "effectual truth" instead. Their contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) said, "If you find from your own experience that something is a fact and it contradicts what some authority has written down, then you must abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own findings."

Question: When was da Vinci born?
Answer: 1452

Question: When did da Vinci die?
Answer: 1519

Question: What did renaissance writers question?
Answer: the medieval and classical understanding of knowledge acquisition

Question: Who did Machiavelli disdain?
Answer: writers on politics who judged everything in comparison to mental ideals

Question: What did da Vinci advise when your experience contradicted authority?
Answer: abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own findings

Question: When did Niccolo Machiavelli live?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: Who judged everything according to mental ideals?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: What was Leonardo da Vinci most famous for?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: Who said you must base your reasoning on authority rather than your own findings?
Answer: Unanswerable

Question: When was Francesco Guicciardini born?
Answer: Unanswerable