During the European Christian culture of the Middle Ages, more specifically from 1100 A.D. to 1453 A.D., David was considered a hero having the religious, moral, and social qualities that were expected from a knight. These ideal qualities were courage, honor, courtesy, justice, and readiness to help the weak. These ideal qualities of David’s life were popularized through expressions in paintings and sculptures.
For example, during the early Renaissance Period, Italian sculptor Bartolomeo Bellano created a bronze sculptor of David with the head of Goliath during the period between 1470 A.D. and 1480 A.D. This statue is 11.25 inches (28.6 cm) tall and is currently located at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Another example is a bronze statue of David by Andrea del Verrocchio that was made between 1473 A.D. and 1475 A.D. It was commissioned by the famous Medici family, which “was an Italian banking family and political dynasty.” This 4-foot, 1-inch (125 cm) tall bronze statue of David shows the youthful David over the head of the slain Goliath and is located at the National Museum (Museo Nazionale del Bargello) of Bargello in Florence, Italy. Although statues of David by Renaissance sculptures are mentioned here, one example of a painting of David is presented to show another flavor of art; Domenico Ghirlandaio, an Italian artist born in Florence, created a painting of David in Early Renaissance style in 1485. The most famous of all these sculptures is the 17-foot (5.17 m) marble statue of Biblical David by Michelangelo, created between 1501 A.D. and 1504 A.D.
The history of creating a sculpture of David goes back to the year 1464 A.D., when Agostino was contracted to create a statue of David. Agostino commenced the work on a piece of marble obtained from a quarry in Carrara, a town in Northern Tuscany. He completed the work up to shaping the legs, feet, and torso. For reasons unknown, the work was stopped in 1466 A.D. Then, in 1501, the Operai decided “to find an artist who could take this large piece of marble and turn it into a finished work of art.” In August 1501 A.D., the project was awarded to Michelangelo, who completed the work in a little over two years. After the statue of David was completed by Michelangelo in the first half of 1504, the location of its placement was discussed. Placing it on top of the roof of the cathedral, as was originally planned, was now dismissed because of the statue’s estimated weight of more than six tons; this weight was considered to be too high for the roof of the cathedral to support. After nine different locations were considered for the placement of the statue, it was finally decided that this marble sculpture of David would be placed at the city’s town hall (now known as Palazzo Vecchio), where it was placed in June 1504 A.D.
After the statue had been there for about three centuries, in the mid-1800s some cracks were observed on the left leg of the statue. They were the result of the differential settlement of the ground underneath it. Therefore, to protect it from further damage, the statue of David was moved to its present location at the Accademia Gallery in Florence (Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, Italy). In its original place, Palazzo Vecchio, a replica of the statue of Michelangelo’s David was placed in 1910. As we will recall, due to the weight-carrying capacity limitation of the Florence Cathedral roofline, David’s original marble statue could not be placed there earlier. Therefore, a fiberglass replica of David was installed on the cathedral’s roofline in 2010 A.D. At present, the original statue of Michelangelo’s David, displayed in the Accademia Gallery in Florence, attracts a large number of visitors.