break the order of certain
ceremonies held in the Loggia. Leonardo da Vinci followed San Gallo; he
did not think it would injure the ceremonies. Salvestro, a jeweller, and
Filippino Lippi supported Piero di Cosimo, who proposed that the precise
spot should be left to the sculptor who made it, "as he will know better
how it should be." Michael Angelo elected to have his David set up on the
steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, on the right side of the entrance. Its
effect in that position may be well seen, appropriately enough, in a
picture by the same Piero di Cosimo (No. 895), in the National Gallery,
where the Piazza della Signoria forms the background to a portrait of a
man in armour. Il Cronaca, Antonio da San Gallo, Baccio d'Agnolo, Bernardo
della Cecca, and Michael Angelo were associated in the task of
transporting the giant from the workshop near the Duomo to the Piazza
della Signoria. It was encased in planks and suspended upright from great
beams. "On May 14, 1504, the marble giant was dragged from the Opera. It
came out at twenty-four o'clock, and they broke the wall above the door
enough to let it pass. That night some stones were thrown at the Colossus
with intent to injure it; a watch had to be set over it at night, and it
made way very slowly, bound as it was upright, suspended so that the feet
were off the ground by enormous beams with much ingenuity. It took four
days to reach the Piazza, arriving on the 18th at the hour of twelve. More
than forty men were employed to make it go, and there were fourteen logs
to go beneath it, which were changed from hand to hand. Afterwards they
worked until June 8, 1504, to place it on a pedestal where the Judith used
to stand. The Judith was removed and set upon the ground within the
palace. The said giant was the work of Michael Angelo Buonarroti."(81) The
great marble David stood in the Piazza three hundred and sixty-nine years;
it was removed to the hall of the Accademia delle Belle Arti in 1873 for
its better preservation. It has suffered very little from its exposure in
the fine air of Florence, but the left arm was broken by a huge stone
thrown during the tumults of 1527. Giorgio Vasari and his friend Cecchino
Salviati collected the broken pieces and brought them to the house of
Michael Angelo Salviati, father of Cecchino. They were carefully put
together and restored to the statue in 1543. The David was the first work
by Michael Angelo that displayed the awe-inspiring qua