After more than two years of carving a single flawed block of Carrara marble that other sculptors had abandoned, Michelangelo Buonarroti, then 29, completed his colossal David. City officials moved the statue to the Piazza della Signoria, where it stood as an emblem of Florentine republican liberty facing down its enemies, most notably Rome and Milan.
The block of marble had sat in a Florence Cathedral workshop for 25 years, already ruined by another sculptor's failed attempt at carving. Officials had nearly given up on it. Michelangelo, young and largely untested on this scale, convinced the cathedral's overseers to let him try, working in secrecy behind a wooden enclosure for over two years.
When finished, the David was too heavy and symbolically important for its originally intended cathedral rooftop perch. A committee including Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli debated where to put it, ultimately choosing the entrance of the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of civic government, transforming a religious commission into a political statement about Florentine resolve against larger rival powers.
The statue's slingshot-wielding pose, muscles tensed before battle rather than after victory, was itself a departure from earlier depictions of David triumphant over Goliath's severed head. It took 40 men four days to move it roughly half a mile using greased beams and ropes.