Where the masters of Florence placed it, under the direction of its maker, Michelangelo’s great white David stood for more than three centuries uncovered, open to all injuries of frost and rain, and to the violence of citizens, until, for the better preservation of this masterpiece of modern art, it was removed in 1873 to a hall of the Accademia delle Belle Arti.  On the whole, it has suffered very little.  Weather has slightly worn away the extremities of the left foot; and in 1527, during a popular tumult, the left arm was broken by a huge stone cast by the assailants of the palace.  Giorgio Vasari tells us how, together with his friend Cecchino Salviati, he collected the scattered pieces, and brought them to the house of Michelangelo Salviati, the father of Cecchino.  They were subsequently put together by the care of the Grand Duke Cosimo, and restored to the statue in the year 1543.

III

In the David Michelangelo first displayed that quality of terribilita, of spirit-quailing, awe-inspiring force, for which he afterwards became so famous.  The statue imposes, not merely by its size and majesty and might, but by something vehement in the conception.  He was, however, far from having yet adopted those systematic proportions for the human body which later on gave an air of monotonous impressiveness to all his figures.  On the contrary, this young giant strongly recalls the model; still more strongly indeed than the Bacchus did.  Wishing perhaps to adhere strictly to the Biblical story, Michelangelo studied a lad whose frame was not developed.  The David, to state the matter frankly, is a colossal hobbledehoy.  His body, in breadth of the thorax, depth of the abdomen, and general stoutness, has not grown up to the scale of the enormous hands and feet and heavy head.  We feel that he wants at least two years to become a fully developed man, passing from adolescence to the maturity of strength and beauty.  This close observance of the imperfections of the model at a certain stage of physical growth is very remarkable, and not altogether pleasing in a statue more than nine feet high.  Both Donatello and Verocchio had treated their Davids in the same realistic manner, but they were working on a small scale and in bronze.  I insist upon this point, because students of Michelangelo have been apt to overlook his extreme sincerity and naturalism in the first stages of his career.

Having acknowledged that the head of David is too massive and the extremities too largely formed for ideal beauty, hypercriticism can hardly find fault with the modelling and execution of each part.  The attitude selected is one of great dignity and vigour.  The heroic boy, quite certain of victory, is excited by the coming contest.  His brows are violently contracted, the nostrils tense and quivering, the eyes fixed keenly on the distant Philistine.  His larynx rises visibly, and the sinews of his left