Michelangelo's David Takes His Stand

September 8, 1504

Florentines gathered in the Piazza della Signoria to watch a colossal nude youth hauled onto a plinth before the Palazzo Vecchio. Carved from a flawed block other sculptors had abandoned, Michelangelo's David glared defiantly toward Rome, a civic hero in marble and sling. The seventeen-foot figure, carved from a block two previous sculptors had abandoned, took four days and crowds of thousands to move.