David is a masterpiece of Italian Renaissance sculpture in marble created from 1501 to 1504 by Michelangelo. With a height of 5.17 metres (17 ft 0 in), the David was the first colossal marble statue made in the High Renaissance, and since classical antiquity, a precedent for the 16th century and beyond. David was originally commissioned as one of a series of statues of twelve prophets to be positioned along the roofline of the east end of Florence Cathedral, but was instead placed in the public square in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of civic government in Florence, where it was unveiled on 8 September 1504. In 1873, the statue was moved to the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence. In 1910 a replica was installed at the original site on the public square.

The biblical figure David was a favoured subject in the art of Florence. Because of the nature of the figure it represented, the statue soon came to symbolize the defence of civil liberties embodied in the 1494 constitution of the Republic of Florence, an independent city-state threatened on all sides by more powerful rival states and by the political aspirations of the Medici family.

History

Commission

The history of the statue of David begins before Michelangelo's work on it from 1501 to 1504. The commission was made during a decisive period in the history of the Florentine republic established after the expulsion of the Medici. The advantages of democratic government never materialized, and internal circumstances grew worse as dangers from without increased.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspired by models from classical antiquity and had a lasting influence on Western art. Michelangelo's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as an archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and elder contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. Given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences, Michelangelo is one of the best-documented artists of the 16th century. He was lauded by contemporary biographers as the most accomplished artist of his era.

Michelangelo achieved fame early. Two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, were sculpted before the age of 30. Although he did not consider himself a painter, Michelangelo created two of the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and The Last Judgment on its altar wall. His design of the Laurentian Library pioneered Mannerist architecture. At the age of 71, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St.