Editing David (Michelangelo) (section)

===Placement===
[[File:Michelangelo David Philpot.jpg|thumb|left|The ''David'' in front of the Palazzo Vecchio before 1873, with a leaf covering his genitals]]
On 25 January 1504, when the sculpture was nearing completion, Florentine authorities had to acknowledge there would be little possibility of raising the  5.17 metre high statue<ref>The height of the ''David'' was recorded incorrectly and the mistake proliferated through many art history publications (434 cm, e.g. by Pope-Hennessy 1996 and Poeschke 1992). The accurate height was only determined in 1998–99 when a team from [[Stanford University]] went to Florence to try out a project on digitally imaging large [[Three-dimensional space|3D]] objects by photographing sculptures by Michelangelo and found that the sculpture was considerably taller than any of the sources had indicated. See {{Cite web|url=http://graphics.stanford.edu/projects/mich/more-david/more-david.html|author=Levoy, Marc|title=We finish scanning the David|date=March 28, 1999}} and about the process {{Cite web|url=https://accademia.stanford.edu/mich/head-of-david/head-of-david.html|title=A 3D computer model of the head of Michelangelo's David}}</ref> weighing approximately 8.5 tons<ref name="Wallace2017">{{cite book |last1=Wallace |first1=William E. |editor1-last=Helmstutler Di Dio |editor1-first=Kelley |title=Making and Moving Sculpture in Early Modern Italy |year=2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-55951-5 |page=47 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nTQrDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA47 |chapter=An Impossible Task}}</ref> to the roof of the cathedral. They convened a committee of 30 Florentine citizens that included many artists, including Leonardo da Vinci and [[Sandro Botticelli]], to decide on an appropriate site for ''David''.<ref name="Levine1974">{{cite journal |last1=Levine |first1=Saul |title=The Location of Michelangelo's David: The Meeting of January 25, 1504 |journal=The Art Bulletin |date=1974 |volume=56 |issue=1 |pages=31–32 |doi=10.2307/3049194 |jstor=3049194 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3049194 |issn=0004-3079}}</ref><ref>The minutes of the meeting were published in Giovanni Gaye, ''Carteggio inedito d'artisti del sec. XIV, XV, XVI'', Florence, 1839–40, 2: 454–463. For an English translation of the document, see Seymour 1967, 140–155, and for an analysis, see Levine 1974, 31–49; N. Randolph Parks, "The Placement of Michelangelo's ''David:'' A Review of the Documents," ''Art Bulletin'', 57 (1975) 560–570; and Goffen 2002, 123–127.</ref> While nine different locations for the statue were discussed, the majority of members seem to have been closely split between two sites.<ref name="Levine1974" />

One group, led by [[Giuliano da Sangallo]] and supported by Leonardo and [[Piero di Cosimo]], among others, believed that, due to the imperfections in the marble, the sculpture should be placed under the roof of the [[Loggia dei Lanzi]] on [[Piazza della Signoria]]; the other group thought it should stand at the entrance to the Palazzo della Signoria, the city's town hall (now known as [[Palazzo Vecchio]]). Another opinion, shared by Botticelli and [[Cosimo Rosselli]], was that the sculpture should be situated in front of the cathedral.<ref name="Levine197435">{{cite journal |last1=Levine |first1=Saul |title=The Location of Michelangelo's David: The Meeting of January 25, 1504 |journal=The Art Bulletin |date=1974 |volume=56 |issue=1 |page=35, note 16 |doi=10.2307/3049194 |jstor=3049194 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3049194 |issn=0004-3079}}</ref><ref name="Poeschke199641">{{cite book |last1=Poeschke |first1=Joachim |title=Michelangelo and His World: Sculpture of the Italian Renaissance |year=1996 |publisher=Harry N. Abrams |isbn=978-0-8109-4276-9 |page=41 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=inNgQgAACAAJ}}</ref>

In June 1504, ''David'' was installed next to the entrance to the Palazzo della Signoria, replacing Donatello's [[bronze sculpture]] of [[Judith and Holofernes (Donatello)|''Judith and Holofernes'']],<ref name="Pope-Hennessy1985">{{cite book |last1=Pope-Hennessy |first1=John Wyndham |title=Italian High Renaissance and Baroque sculpture |year=1985 |publisher=New York : Vintage Books |isbn=978-0-394-72934-3 |page=12 |url=https://archive.org/details/italianhighrenai0000pope/page/12/mode/2up}}</ref> which also embodied a theme of heroic resistance.<ref name="McHam2001">{{cite journal |last1=McHam |first1=Sarah Blake |title=Donatello's Bronze David and Judith as Metaphors of Medici Rule in Florence |journal=The Art Bulletin |date=2001 |volume=83 |issue=1 |doi=10.1080/00043079.2001.10786967 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00043079.2001.10786967 |access-date=9 July 2023}}</ref><ref name="Broude2018">{{cite book |last1=Broude |first1=Norma |title=The Expanding Discourse: Feminism And Art History |year=2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-429-97246-1 |page=217 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zJZNDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT217}}</ref> It took four days to move it the half mile from the cathedral's workshop into the Piazza della Signoria. The statue was suspended in a wooden frame and rolled on fourteen greased logs by more than 40 men.<ref name="PaolettiRadke2005">{{cite book |last1=Paoletti |first1=John T. |last2=Radke |first2=Gary M. |title=Art in Renaissance Italy |year=2005 |publisher=Laurence King Publishing |isbn=978-1-85669-439-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EFhVehAvVyUC&pg=PA388}}</ref> Later that summer, the sling and tree-stump support were gilded, and the figure was given a gilt loin-garland.{{sfn|Goffen|2002|p=130}}<ref name="Coonin2014">{{cite book |last1=Coonin |first1=Arnold Victor |title=From Marble to Flesh: The Biography of Michelangelo's David |year=2014 |publisher=B'Gruppo |isbn=978-88-97696-02-5 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zIZsoAEACAAJ |pages=90–94}}</ref>