Editing David (Michelangelo) (section)

==Pedestal==
[[File:Michelangelo's David with pedestal.jpg|thumb|left|The ''David'' with its present-day pedestal]]
Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt makes the case that pedestals are of great significance for Renaissance sculpture, and, following [[Rosalind E. Krauss|Rosalind Krauss]],<ref name="Wright2011">{{cite journal |last1=Wright |first1=Alison |title='… con uno inbasamento et ornamento alto': The Rhetoric of the Pedestal c. 1430-1550 |journal=Art History |date=February 2011 |volume=34 |issue=1 |pages=10–12 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-8365.2010.00798.x |url=https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1399808/1/Wright_pedestals3_template.pdf}}</ref> that it is the support, not the statue itself that decides the monumentality of a work of sculpture. She describes how the pedestal that supports the ''David'' has been neglected in the literature as a component of Michelangelo's extraordinary achievement with his completion of the statue, and is usually not seen in photographs. The bases of most Renaissance statues have historically suffered a similar fate.<ref name="Weil-Garris Brandt1983">{{cite journal |last1=Weil-Garris Brandt |first1=Kathleen |title=On Pedestals: Michelangelo's David, Bandinelli's Hercules and Cacus and the Sculpture of the Piazza della Signoria |journal=Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana |date=1983 |volume=20 |pages=379–384, 392–393 |doi=10.11588/rjbh.1983.20.91932 |url=https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/rjbh/article/download/91932/86601 |language=en |issn=2702-7139}}</ref> When Michelangelo was young, pedestals were seldom a matter of much consideration to the sculptor; free{{nbh}}standing sculpture executed by contemporaries was rare and was made to surmount antique or new columns. ''Imbasamento'' is the Italian word generally used for the supports of sculpture; these and other kinds of pedestals were customarily made by ''scarpellini'', that is, professional carvers of architectural ornament, or ideally by other sculptors.<ref name="Weil-Garris Brandt1983" />

On 11 June 1504, the architects in charge of the transportation of the statue to the Palazzo della Signoria, [[Simone del Pollaiolo]] and [[Antonio da Sangallo the Elder]], were ordered by the ''Operai'' of the Cathedral to make a marble base ''subtus et circum circa pedes gigantis'' (underneath and around the feet of the giant). Because the ''David'' was already situated, the pedestal apparently consisted of a sheath surrounding a core rather than a solid block of stone meant to support the weight of the statue. As it was architects who built and installed the pedestal, they have been credited entirely for its execution, but Brandt thinks it more likely to have been Michelangelo's idea.<ref name="Weil-Garris Brandt1983" />

According to Brandt, the ''David'' marked a pivotal event in the history of pedestals: the first still existent use in the Renaissance of an antique architectural [[Socle (architecture)|socle form]] to support a sculptural colossus. Practical considerations such as the support's ability to bear the weight and the difficulty of installation were necessarily taken into account, but otherwise its dimensions and form were a matter of free discretion. Nevertheless, the pedestal was not an arbitrary decorative element that could be exchanged for another. In one sense it was an extension of the architectural surroundings, but its form responded to the figure it supports. Thereafter, pedestals would become integral parts of sculptures.<ref name="Weil-Garris Brandt1983" />

Alison Wright, drawing on the work of social historian [[Richard Trexler]], calls the innovative installation of statues in the Piazza della Signoria in 16th-century Florence the "greatest public forum for the display of modern freestanding sculpture in Renaissance Italy", a reflection of the importance given in the city to upholding collective and personal honour. The pedestal created for Michelangelo's colossus was novel in this social context, installed as the terminus of the [[baluster|balustrade]] that stood before the town hall, the Palazzo della Signoria. Considered within this framing of the performative and ritual functions of the city's important sites, pedestals expressed the will to do honour in public and sacred spaces.<ref name="Wright2011"/>