[3] 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,[4] an independent city-state threatened on all sides by more powerful rival states and by the political aspirations of the Medici family.

"[13] Ready to continue their project, in 1464 the Operai contracted Agostino to create a marble sculpture of the young David,[14] a symbol of Florence, to be mounted high on the eastern end of the Duomo.

Antonio Rossellino, also a Florentine, was commissioned in 1476 to resume the work, but the contract was apparently rescinded, and the block lay neglected and exposed to the weather in the yard of the cathedral workshop for another twenty-five years.

It said (English translation of the Latin text): ... the Consuls of the Arte della Lana and the Lords Overseers being met, have chosen as sculptor to the said Cathedral the worthy master, Michelangelo, the son of Lodovico Buonarrotti, a citizen of Florence, to the end that he may make, finish and bring to perfection the male figure known as the Giant, nine braccia in height, already blocked out in marble by Maestro Agostino grande, of Florence, and badly blocked; and now stored in the workshops of the Cathedral.

The contract provided him a workspace in the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore behind the Duomo, paid him a salary of six fiorini per month, and allowed him two years to complete the sculpture.

[26] When the finished statue was moved from the Opera del Duomo to the Piazza della Signoria over the course of four days, as reported by two contemporary diarists, Luca Landucci and Pietro di Marco Parenti, a guard was placed to protect it from violence by other artists in Florence who had hoped for the commission.

It came from the old Roman Fantiscritti quarry at the centre of the Carrara marble basins,[15] and had been transported by oxen-pulled carts to the sea, whence it was carried on barges dragged by oxen up the river Arno to Florence.

The artist, who made his steel chisels himself,[15] began cutting the stone with the subbia, a heavy, pointed iron tool used to rough out the main mass, before he employed the two-toothed shorter blade called the calcagnuolo.

A node of marble on the gigante that Michelangelo chiseled away before he began work on David in earnest has been interpreted by historians as a knot of drapery, based on the surmise that Agostino di Duccio's figure was intended to be clothed.

[41]On 25 January 1504, when the sculpture was nearing completion, Florentine authorities had to acknowledge there would be little possibility of raising the 5.17 metre high statue[42] weighing approximately 8.5 tons[43] to the roof of the cathedral.

Vasari wrote that it had jumped into the river in despair when it heard that Baccio Bandinelli would be carving it rather than Michelangelo, to whom the commission for a colossal statue of Hercules and Cacus at the entrance to the Palazzo della Signoria had originally been given.

The architect Emilio De Fabris, professor at the Accademia, designed a tribune to house the David in a vaulted interior exedra, towards the apse, where it was bathed in light that streamed in through windows in the dome above.

In 2006, Borri and Grazini, using historical analysis and a finite element model of the David, identified the probable cause of the cracks in its legs as a slight forward inclination of the statue that developed after the flood of 1844 in Florence.

An artistic deviation from what very likely would have been accurately portrayed as a circumcised penis, it is in keeping with the conventions of Renaissance art,[81][82] in which the Christ Child, for example, is represented as being uncircumcised, although clearly older than the eight days compelled by Jewish scripture.

The commission, consisting of the most prominent artists of the day, debated in great detail the best placement for the colossal figure to be seen and appreciated, with consideration for its aria, moda, and qualità (its aura, style, and excellence).

[86] Machiavelli wrote of the long Florentine tradition that represented David as defender of the patria, a convention most completely developed in the arts – especially in the series of statues, from Donatello's to Michelangelo's, depicting him as the protector of his people.

Having returned the armour given him by King Saul, and choosing to fight Goliath with his own weapons – a sling and a knife – David personified the citizen soldier of Florence,[69] and the city's ability to defend itself with its own arms.

[87] Rather than placing Goliath's severed head between or underneath the David's feet, Michelangelo carved the stump of a tree on the back of the right leg, a device conventionally employed by sculptors in ancient times to help support the weight of a statue.

In a contemporary document the stump was called broncone, the same Italian word used for Lorenzo de' Medici's personal emblem, or impresa – a dead branch of laurel sprouting new green growth.

[90][91] According to Paoletti, a naked colossus situated in the primary public space of the city was necessarily politically charged, the David's nakedness being more than merely a reference to the sculpture of antiquity that inspired the arts in the Italian Renaissance.

Imbasamento is the Italian word generally used for the supports of sculpture; these and other kinds of pedestals were customarily made by scarpellini, that is, professional carvers of architectural ornament, or ideally by other sculptors.

[94] On 11 June 1504, the architects in charge of the transportation of the statue to the Palazzo della Signoria, Simone del Pollaiolo and Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, were ordered by the Operai of the Cathedral to make a marble base subtus et circum circa pedes gigantis (underneath and around the feet of the giant).

[94] Alison Wright, drawing on the work of social historian Richard Trexler, calls the innovative installation of statues in the Piazza della Signoria in 16th-century Florence the "greatest public forum for the display of modern freestanding sculpture in Renaissance Italy", a reflection of the importance given in the city to upholding collective and personal honour.

[102] Agnese Parronchi, the restorer originally selected by Florentine museums superintendent Antonio Paolucci, assessed the David's condition herself by examining hundreds of photographs and performing a series of tests.

Observation with optical fibres and magnifying lenses shows that the marble immediately surrounding the cavity may present milky white or greyish "halos" averaging a few millimetres wide.

[105] As of 2024 temporary scaffolding is erected around the statue every two months and in an operation that takes a half a day, dust and spider's webs are removed using soft-bristled brushes of various sizes and a bristle tipped vacuum cleaner.

[109] A decree by the Tuscan state on 2 October 1858 ordered the casting of the entire figure of the David, which Papi completed in August 1866, sending the finished statue to the 1867 Paris Exposition the next year.

[95] The statue sent to Queen Victoria was intended as a diplomatic gesture by Duke Leopoldo II to assuage any ill feelings caused by his refusal to allow the sending of a notable Domenico Ghirlandaio painting from Florence to London.

The fig leaf was created in response to Queen Victoria's apparent shock upon first viewing the statue's nudity, and was hung on the figure by means of two strategically placed hooks prior to royal visits.

[114] Later reproductions have been made in plaster and in simulated marble fibreglass, signifying an attempt to lend an atmosphere of culture even in some unlikely settings such as beach resorts, gambling casinos and model railroads.