48 Fun Facts About Michelangelo's David

How tall is Michelangelo's David?

Michelangelo's David stands 5.17 metres tall without its pedestal, carved from a single marble block that had lain neglected in the cathedral workshop for decades.

In which Italian city was the David carved and unveiled?

Florence unveiled the statue outside the Palazzo della Signoria, seat of its republican government, on 8 September 1504.

Between which years did Michelangelo work on the David?

Michelangelo worked on the David from 1501-1504: he began carving on the morning of 13 September 1501, and the finished statue was installed outside the Palazzo della Signoria in 1504.

How old was Michelangelo when he won the commission for the David in 1501?

Born in March 1475, Michelangelo was 26 when the cathedral overseers handed him the block in summer 1501; the older Andrea Sansovino had also sought the job.

For which building was the David originally commissioned?

Florence Cathedral's board of works, the Operai del Duomo, commissioned the David as one of twelve Old Testament figures planned for positions high on the building's exterior.

Which sculptor first began roughing out the marble block in 1464, decades before Michelangelo touched it?

Agostino di Duccio began blocking out the legs, feet and torso in 1464 but stopped in 1466, the year his master Donatello died, leaving the marble abandoned in the cathedral yard.

From which quarrying town did the marble for the David come?

Carrara's Fantiscritti quarry, worked since Roman times, supplied the block, a mediocre grade of white marble hauled by ox cart to the coast and then by barge up the Arno.

What nickname did the Florentine cathedral overseers give the neglected marble block?

The overseers' records called the block Il gigante, the giant; a 1500 inventory listed it as 'a certain figure of marble called David, badly blocked out and supine'.

How long did the cathedral overseers' contract give Michelangelo to finish the statue?

Two years was the term set in the contract, which paid Michelangelo six gold florins a month and gave him a workspace in the cathedral yard; the statue was finished early in 1504.

Which sculptor was contracted in 1476 to resume work on the block, only for the deal to fall through?

Antonio Rossellino was hired in 1476 to take over the abandoned block, but his contract was cancelled almost at once and the marble sat exposed in the yard for another 25 years.

Which two famous artists sat on the 1504 committee deciding where the David should stand?

Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli both sat on the committee; of nine sites discussed, Leonardo favoured the sheltered Loggia dei Lanzi while Botticelli wanted the statue beside the cathedral.

Whose bronze sculpture did the David replace at the entrance to the Palazzo della Signoria in 1504?

Donatello's Judith and Holofernes, a bronze seized from the Medici palace in 1495, was shifted to the Loggia dei Lanzi; both works cast a tyrant-slayer as an emblem of the republic's defiance of the exiled Medici.

How was the finished statue moved the half mile from the cathedral workshop to the piazza in 1504?

Rolled on fourteen greased logs, the statue hung upright in a wooden frame and was inched along by more than 40 men; the journey took four days, as Luca Landucci's diary records.

What happened to the David during its four-day move to the piazza in 1504?

It was pelted with stones by youths at night, the diarist Luca Landucci recorded, so a guard was posted over the statue as it inched across the city between 14 and 18 May 1504.

Which part of the David was broken into three pieces during an anti-Medici riot in 1527?

Its left arm was snapped into three pieces by a bench hurled from a window of the Palazzo della Signoria; the boy Giorgio Vasari and his friend Francesco Salviati gathered the fragments, reattached in 1543.

In which year was the David moved indoors to the Galleria dell'Accademia?

In 1873 the statue was crated and hauled across the city on a temporary railway to the Accademia, where it waited under a wooden shelter until its purpose-built tribune opened in 1882.

What is unusual about the David compared with earlier Davids by Donatello and Verrocchio?

Goliath is left out entirely: Donatello and Verrocchio showed the victor standing over the giant's severed head, but Michelangelo's David stares into the distance, brow tense, in the moment before the fight.

Which classical term names the weight-shifted stance that Michelangelo's David adopts?

Contrapposto, the weight-on-one-leg pose with hips and shoulders tilted in opposite directions, was a hallmark of antique sculpture traced back to the Doryphoros of Polykleitos, around 440 BC.

Which parts of the David are unusually large for both Michelangelo's work and antique models?

Head and hands are outsized, the right hand especially, probably because the figure was meant to be read from far below on the cathedral roofline.

What does David hold in his left hand, draped over his shoulder?

A sling lies in his left hand, draped over his shoulder, its strap running down to the right hand; the strap was gilded the summer after the statue was installed.

What did Michelangelo carve behind David's right leg to help support the statue's weight?

A tree stump behind the right leg braces the weight of the marble figure; Michelangelo borrowed the support from antique statues, and it was gilded soon after the unveiling.

Which statesman, Vasari relates, complained that the David's nose was too big?

Piero Soderini, the republic's gonfaloniere for life, thought the nose too thick, Vasari relates; Michelangelo climbed up, let marble dust fall without touching the stone, and Soderini pronounced it improved.

In 1991 a man named Piero Cannata attacked the David with what?

A hammer was the weapon: Cannata, an unemployed artist, smashed the second toe of the left foot on 14 September 1991 before visitors wrestled him away, and the toe was later rebuilt from the fragments.

In 2023 a lesson showing the David cost a principal her job in which US state?

Florida: Hope Carrasquilla, principal of Tallahassee Classical School, was forced out in March 2023 after parents complained that a sixth-grade art lesson showing the statue was pornographic.

What did the sculptor Aristodemo Costoli use to clean the David, causing lasting damage?

Hydrochloric acid, in a 50 per cent solution, stripped the statue's original protective wax and left the marble surface pitted and porous.

How was the David protected during the Second World War?

Michelangelo's other sculptures in the Accademia were sealed up in the same way.

Which restorer resigned from the 2004 project after refusing to use the wet 'poultice' cleaning method?

Agnese Parronchi favoured dry cleaning with soft brushes and erasers and quit in 2003; the job passed to Cinzia Parnigoni under Accademia director Franca Falletti.

Which parts of the David have developed cracks that engineers monitor closely?

The ankles and the tree trunk show hairline cracks, found in a 2014 engineering study, attributed to a slight forward tilt that concentrates the statue's weight in its thin lower supports.

To whom did Grand Duke Leopold II of Tuscany give a plaster cast of the David in 1857?

Queen Victoria received the cast as a diplomatic gesture after Tuscany blocked the export of a Ghirlandaio painting to London; she promptly passed it on to the South Kensington Museum, now the Victoria and Albert Museum.

What accessory does the Victoria and Albert Museum's plaster cast of the David come with?

A detachable fig leaf was made so it could be hung from two hooks before royal visits, after the queen was reportedly shocked by the nudity; the museum keeps it in a case beside the cast.

Where was a bronze cast of the David raised in 1875?

Clemente Papi's cast was shown at the 1867 Paris Exposition first; the 1875 unveiling marked the 400th anniversary of Michelangelo's birth.

In 2010 a fibreglass replica of the David was hoisted for a week onto what?

A buttress of Florence Cathedral, beside the dome's tribune, briefly carried the fibreglass copy in November 2010, showing the statue where its commissioners had originally meant it to stand.

Which bow-worked tool did Michelangelo use to carve David's hair and the pupils of his eyes?

A drill spun with a bow bored the deep hollows in the curling hair and the pupils of the eyes, giving shadows that chisels alone could not cut.

What is the heavy pointed iron tool Michelangelo used first, to rough out the main mass of the block?

Subbia is the pointed punch used to knock away the bulk of the block; Michelangelo then went to the two-toothed calcagnuolo and the multi-toothed gradina, whose claw marks show on his unfinished figures.

Whose Hercules and Cacus was set up beside the David outside the Palazzo Vecchio in 1534?

Baccio Bandinelli carved Hercules and Cacus between 1525 and 1534 as a Medici counterpart to the republic's David; Cellini sneered that its muscles looked like a sack of melons.

Which architect designed the domed tribune in the Accademia where the David has stood since 1882?

Emilio De Fabris, the architect who also designed the cathedral's neo-Gothic façade, planned the skylit tribune; the statue waited nine years after its move indoors for the room to be finished.

In 2010 the Italian Culture Ministry found itself in a dispute over the David's ownership with whom?

The city of Florence claimed the statue in 2010 on the strength of a legal review of the 1504 commissioning documents, while the ministry insisted that the state had owned it since Italian unification.

According to Vasari, what did the marble block meant to be the David's companion piece do in 1525?

Fell into the Arno in despair: the block slipped into the river on its way to the city, and Vasari relates the joke that it despaired on learning a lesser sculptor, not Michelangelo, would carve it into Hercules and Cacus.

How many people were on the committee that debated where to place the David in 1504?

30 citizens, including several leading painters, met on 25 January 1504; most favoured either the sheltered Loggia dei Lanzi or the entrance of the Palazzo della Signoria.

In 2024, how often was scaffolding put up around the David so it could be dusted?

Every two months, a restorer spent half a day on a scaffold going over the statue with soft brushes and a brush-tipped vacuum to lift dust and cobwebs.

What was the David given the summer after its installation, in addition to a gilded sling and stump?

A gilt victory wreath was added in the summer of 1504, when the Signoria also had the strap and the stump gilded; none of that ornament survives.

On what date was Michelangelo given the official contract for the David?

16 August 1501 is the date of the Latin contract, which called him 'the worthy master Michelangelo, son of Lodovico Buonarroti' and specified a figure nine braccia high.

Which Florentine guild dominated the Operai del Duomo, the committee that commissioned the David?

Wool merchants ran the Arte della Lana, the guild that had overseen the cathedral works since the 1330s; its consuls signed the contract alongside the Operai.

What is the twentieth-century copy of the David outside the Palazzo Vecchio made of?

Marble: the full-size copy at the original's old spot beside the palace entrance was carved in the early twentieth century, unlike the bronze cast on the hill above the city.

Who refuses to join the crusade against the David in a 1990 Simpsons episode?

Marge Simpson, having just led a crusade against cartoon violence, refuses to join her fellow protesters when they turn on the statue in 'Itchy & Scratchy & Marge', first aired in December 1990.

Which biblical figure did Donatello sculpt in 1410 as the first of the cathedral's series of giants?

Joshua, Donatello's colossal terracotta of 1410, was gessoed and painted white to pass for marble when seen from below; it has long since been lost.

In which year was a replica of the David placed in the Piazza della Signoria?

1910 saw a full-size copy set on the original's spot outside the Palazzo Vecchio, nearly four decades after the original had moved indoors to the Accademia.

What was strung around the David's groin soon after its 1504 installation?

A vine of copper leaves, gilded, was strung around the loins to cover the nudity in the summer of 1504; none of that ornament survives.