Sacred Art & Iconography

David (Galleria dell'Accademia, Inv. 1076)

Carrara marble, Michelangelo, 1501 to 1504, Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "David (Galleria dell'Accademia, Inv. 1076)." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/sacred-art-iconography/michelangelo-david-accademia.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). David (Galleria dell'Accademia, Inv. 1076). Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/sacred-art-iconography/michelangelo-david-accademia

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-david-galleria-dell-accademia-inv-1076,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {David (Galleria dell'Accademia, Inv. 1076)},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-divinity.interactiveatlas.org/sacred-art-iconography/michelangelo-david-accademia},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

A colossal marble statue by Michelangelo, carved between 1501 and 1504 from a single block of Carrara marble, standing 517 centimetres tall. It shows the biblical David nude, a sling draped over his left shoulder and a stone held in his right hand, poised in contrapposto before his battle with Goliath rather than after it, his gaze turned watchfully to one side. Commissioned by the Florentine Wool Guild, the statue was originally installed in the Piazza della Signoria in 1504 as a civic symbol of the Florentine Republic's defiance against more powerful rivals, moved indoors to the Galleria dell'Accademia in 1873 for protection and permanently installed there from 1882, with a full-scale replica placed at the original outdoor site in 1910. It remains one of the most recognized works of Renaissance sculpture and one of the most widely reproduced images of the biblical David.

Facts

Subject Matter

Devotional Functionthe subject's own account

The night after the statue was moved into place in 1504, it was pelted with stones by youths sympathetic to the recently exiled Medici family, a hostile act read as a direct response to its republican symbolism, and Florentine guards had to be posted to protect it, evidence that contemporaries understood the statue as an overtly partisan political statement rather than as neutral biblical art. 1

In Other Languages (47 names)

Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Goliath

This source names Goliath directly: "in contrapposto before his battle with Goliath rather than after it, his gaze turned watchfully to one side."

Source David, Michelangelo (Wikipedia)

Belongs to Tradition

Judaism

Source David, Michelangelo (Wikipedia)

Depicts

King David

The statue's sole subject, named directly in the museum's title as recorded by Wikipedia and confirmed by the Wikidata depicts statement for the same accession.

Source David, Michelangelo (Wikipedia)

Additional Source David, Michelangelo (Wikidata Q179900)

Sources

1. David, Michelangelo (Wikipedia)

WikipediaView the Source

David, Michelangelo (Wikidata Q179900)

WikidataDepicts: King David

Quote, Depicts: King David