ding pieces none of the others, save Buonarroti alone, had
courage enough), Michelagnolo had felt a desire for it for many years
back; and, having come to Florence, he sought to obtain it. This block
of marble was nine braccia high, and from it, unluckily, one Maestro
Simone da Fiesole had begun a giant, and he had managed to work so
ill, that he had hacked a hole between the legs, and it was altogether
misshapen and reduced to ruin, insomuch that the Wardens of Works of
S. Maria del Fiore, who had the charge of the undertaking, had placed
it on one side without troubling to have it finished; and so it had
remained for many years past, and was likely to remain. Michelagnolo
measured it all anew, considering whether he might be able to carve a
reasonable figure from that block by accommodating himself as to the
attitude to the marble as it had been left all misshapen by Maestro
Simone; and he resolved to ask for it from Soderini and the Wardens,
by whom it was granted to him as a thing of no value, they thinking
that whatever he might make of it would be better than the state in
which it was at that time, seeing that neither in pieces nor in that
condition could it be of any use to their building. Whereupon
Michelagnolo made a model of wax, fashioning in it, as a device for
the Palace, a young David with a sling in his hand, to the end that,
even as he had defended his people and governed them with justice, so
those governing that city might defend her valiantly and govern her
justly. And he began it in the Office of Works of S. Maria del Fiore,
in which he made an enclosure of planks and masonry, thus surrounding
the marble; and, working at it continuously without anyone seeing it,
he carried it to perfect completion. The marble had already been
spoilt and distorted by Maestro Simone, and in some places it was not
enough to satisfy the wishes of Michelagnolo for what he would have
liked to do with it; and he therefore suffered certain of the first
marks of Maestro Simone's chisel to remain on the extremity of the
marble, some of which are still to be seen. And truly it was a miracle
on the part of Michelagnolo to restore to life a thing that was dead.

This statue, when finished, was of such a kind that many disputes took
place as to how to transport it to the Piazza della Signoria.
Whereupon Giuliano da San Gallo and his brother Antonio made a very
strong framework of wood and suspended the figure from it with ropes,
t