ith Cardinal Piccolomini.

A gigantic block of marble had been delivered in 1464 to Agostino di
Duccio by the Board of Works of S. Maria del Fiore to be used for the
statue of a prophet. The work had been interrupted at this point. The
Gonfalonier Soderini wanted to entrust the completion of it to Lionardo
da Vinci, but in August, 1502, it was given to Michelangelo and he set
to work on it at once. From that block of marble came forth the colossal
David. By January 25, 1504, the work was completed and a commission of
artists among whom were Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, Lionardo da Vinci
and Perugino was considering where it should be placed. They hesitated
between the Loggia dei Lanzi and the entrance of the Palace of the
Signory. The latter position was decided upon at the expressed
preference of Michelangelo. The architects of the Duomo, Simone del
Pollajuolo (Cronaca), Antonio da San Gallo, Baccio d'Agnolo and Bernardo
della Cecca were charged with the transportation of the enormous mass
of stone which was placed in position on the eighth of June, 1504, on
the left of the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio where until then the
Judith of Donatello had stood.

To-day the David is in the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence. There
it is in too confined a space. That colossus needs the open air, he
stifles under the roof of a Palace and his disproportion to everything
around him is shocking. We can perhaps judge better what he really is
from the reproduction in bronze, which on the hill of San Miniato raises
its inspiring silhouette above the town. There the irregularity of the
details disappears in the impression of the whole. Incredible energy
emanates from that gigantic force in repose--from that great face in the
small head, and from that huge body with the slender waist, thin arms
and the enormous hands with swollen veins and heavy fingers.

All of Michelangelo is there in that mixture of proud nobility and
almost barbarous vulgarity. He is all there, and he only, entirely
regardless of his subject. The head of the David with its wrinkled
forehead, thick eyebrows and scornful lips--a type that he often used
afterward--is, like the heads of Lorenzo and of Giuliano de' Medici, a
lyric work into which Michelangelo poured his own sadness, disdain and
melancholy.

Michelangelo had not waited to finish this work before accepting other
commissions which he was to abandon along the way. In 1502 a David[17]
in bronze for