mpossible
that these ecclesiastical and tame pieces should have been produced at
the same time as the David by the same hand. Neither Vasari nor
Condivi speaks about them, although it is certain that Michelangelo
was held bound to his contract during several years. Upon the death of
Pius III., he renewed it with the Pope's heirs, Jacopo and Andrea
Piccolomini, by a deed dated September 15, 1504; and in 1537 Anton
Maria Piccolomini, to whom the inheritance succeeded, considered
himself Michelangelo's creditor for the sum of a hundred crowns, which
had been paid beforehand for work not finished by the sculptor.

A far more important commission was intrusted to Michelangelo in
August of the same year, 1501. Condivi, after mentioning his return to
Florence, tells the history of the colossal David in these words:
"Here he stayed some time, and made the statue which stands in front
of the great door of the Palace of the Signory, and is called the
Giant by all people. It came about in this way. The Board of Works at
S. Maria del Fiore owned a piece of marble nine cubits in height,
which had been brought from Carrara some hundred years before by a
sculptor insufficiently acquainted with his art. This was evident,
inasmuch as, wishing to convey it more conveniently and with less
labour, he had it blocked out in the quarry, but in such a manner that
neither he nor any one else was capable of extracting a statue from
the block, either of the same size, or even on a much smaller scale.
The marble being, then, useless for any good purpose, Andrea del Monte
San Savino thought that he might get possession of it from the Board,
and begged them to make him a present of it, promising that he would
add certain pieces of stone and carve a statue from it. Before they
made up their minds to give it, they sent for Michelangelo; then,
after explaining the wishes and the views of Andrea, and considering
his own opinion that it would be possible to extract a good thing from
the block, they finally offered it to him. Michelangelo accepted,
added no pieces, and got the statue out so exactly, that, as any one
may see, in the top of the head and at the base some vestiges of the
rough surface of the marble still remain. He did the same in other
works, as, for instance, in the Contemplative Life upon the tomb of
Julius; indeed, it is a sign left by masters on their work, proving
them to be absolute in their art. But in the David it was much more
rema