"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how expressive and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world!" Shakespeare through the mouth of Hamlet expressed in words that which Michelangelo with his David expressed in marble.

The Biblical character of David was taken as a symbol of the city of Florence, it was almost an epitome of the Renaissance ideal. Man had newly awakened to an interest in man himself, to an admiration of his inherent power and capability.

In 1501 the twenty-six year old Michelangelo was given an eighteen foot block of marble that had been hacked at by other sculptors and which had lain for thirty-five years in the cathedral work yard. Out of it he was to fashion a statue of David. Donatello and Verrocchio before him had in Florence made notable interpretations of David but Michelangelo's was destined to be of a very different nature. His David emerged from the stone, not as a small, brave adolescent who
had already killed Goliath, but as a young man, at the peak of physical strength who is ready to go forth to conquer the giant; an apotheosis of heroic qualities. He appears the perfection of a man -- a man noble in reason, expressive and admirable in body! As in the Pieta, Michelangelo the master of anatomy, distorts to convey. The enlarged right hand tells us of his courage and
physical power.