Calling Michelangelo’s David iconic is something of an understatement: A monument of art history both literally and figuratively, it is undoubtedly the world’s most famous sculpture—and, with a height of nearly 14 feet and a weight of more than six tons, impossible to ignore.
Fashioned from white Carrara marble and depicting its subject completely nude, David (1501–1504) represented a high-water mark of the Florentine Renaissance, a paragon of the revival of classicism that marked Europe’s emergence out of the medieval period. “It cannot be denied that this work has carried off the palm from all other statues, modern or ancient, Greek or Latin,” Giorgio Vasari would later write in The Lives of the Artists, first published in 1550, “No other artwork is equal to it in any respect.”
Indeed, the acclaim it met upon its unveiling was such that when a committee of artists discussed where exactly David should be installed, an envious Leonardo Da Vinci suggested an out-of-the-way location. Instead the piece received pride of place in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s seat of power, on the Piazza della Signoria (though it had been originally intended for the roof of the city’s cathedral, the Duomo).
The figure of David—the shepherd boy and future king of Israel who brought low the gargantuan Philistine champion, Goliath, with a slingshot—had already been a subject for other Florentine artists years before Michelangelo. During the 1440s, for instance, Donatello fashioned a bronze version of the biblical hero (also naked), depicting him in a rather louche pose with one hand on his hip and the other holding a sword as he steps on Goliath’s severed head.
David, then, was something of a civic symbol, but Florence’s identification with him intensified when France’s King Charles VIII invaded Italy in 1494. Florence’s ruling Medici family, accused of compromising the city’s independence from the French, was expelled, followed by the establishment of a new republic (which started inauspiciously with the two-year reign of the theocratic Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola). Confronted by adversaries that included the Medici plotting a return to power, Florence embraced David as the embodiment of heroic resistance, ultimately leading to the creation of Michelangelo’s masterpiece.
Technically, Michelangelo was taking over a commission that had been in progress for decades. The Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, the organization charged with the construction and maintenance of the Duomo, had initially awarded the grant to Donatello’s protégé, Agostino di Duccio, in 1463. It was assumed that the David would be carved from multiple pieces of marble, but when Agostino went to the quarry at Carrara to select the material, he chose a single, massive block of bianco ordinario, a lesser grade of rock that would eventually prove problematic. Agostino roughed out the torso, legs, and feet of David before abandoning the work upon the death of his master in 1466. Ten years later, another student of Donatello, Antonio Rossellino, was hired to resume the effort, but he immediately withdrew from the contract, citing the poor quality of the stone. The block, which became known as Il Gigante (The Giant), lay outdoors on its side in the Duomo’s courtyard for 25 years before Michelangelo entered the picture in 1500.
The Opera had already raised Il Gigante upright and built a scaffold around it when Michelangelo commenced carving on September 13, 1501. He worked in secret in the courtyard, exposed to the elements, demonstrating a talent for laboring under difficult conditions that would become mythologized with his work on the Sistine ceiling.
Once Michelangelo had finished, it became clear that there was no way to hoist the sculpture to the top of the Duomo as planned, and the aforementioned committee was convened to determine a suitable alternative location. Among the suggestions was a spot in front of the cathedral, which Sandro Botticelli endorsed. Others thought that, given the imperfections in the marble, it should be placed under the roof of the Loggia dei Lanzi on the Piazza della Signoria to protect it from the rain. The committee ultimately decided on putting David in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, where it served as a totem of defiance against Florence’s enemies.
Packed in a wooden crate, David was transported the half mile from the cathedral to the Piazza della Signoria in June 1504. It took 40 men more than four days to roll the sculpture along greased logs to its final destination. Michelangelo continued to add finishing touches to the statue once it was installed, and gold leaf was later applied to parts of the figure, a long-forgotten addition that wore off over time.
Michelangelo’s rendering of David was unlike any previous iteration. Whereas the subject had usually been presented in triumph over his defeated foe, Michelangelo chose the moment before the confrontation. David is presented with one hand raised, holding a sling draped over his shoulder, with the other hand hanging by his side, clenching the rock he’d soon let fly. His body is relaxed yet coiled for action, his countenance wary and alert as his eyes size up his target with a penetrating glare. His hands are huge, suggesting massive batteries ready to discharge their deadly energy. The power and subtlety with which Michelangelo conveys David’s inherent tension through musculature and facial expression are indeed unmatched, as Vasari stated, by any work before or since.
After cracks were discovered in the statue’s left leg, it was moved to the Gallery of the Academy of Florence during the 1870s. In 1882 it was moved again to a purpose-built alcove within the Academy, where it sits under a domed skylight. In 1910 a replica was placed in the statue’s former spot on the Piazza della Signoria.
Over the years, David has attracted millions of visitors, and on one occasion in 1991, the unwanted attention of a deranged artist named Piero Cannata, who attacked the sculpture with a hammer, breaking off the second toe on the left foot. He was detained, along with tourists attempting to make off with the pieces. But repairs were successfully made to David, renewing its role as a testament to human achievement.
