FLORENCE WALKING TOUR
HISTORIC CITY CENTER

During the late 14th century, Florentines began their long history with artistic competitions. Most of the city's marvels were commissioned through high-profile contests pitting the city's greatest artists against one another. These masterpieces of artistic and architectural engineering included Filippo Brunelleschi’s towering cathedral dome and the bronze doors of the Baptistery. 

 

In 1501, the Cathedral Committee set forth a new competition - the creation of a large figure of the biblical David. For decades, a giant hunk of marble lay dormant in a corner of the cathedral's work yard. A generation earlier, two master sculptors tried their hand at creating a sculpture from this large marble block quarried from the white hills of Carrara, located along the Tuscan coast northwest of Florence. However, the block was awkward and strangely sized. Both sculptors ultimately abandoned the project. The question buzzing throughout the city was whether there was an artist talented enough to shape this long abandoned block of marble.

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Controversially, it was a twenty-five year old, relatively unknown sculptor by the name of Michelangelo Buonarroti who won the commission. For three years the citizens of Florence waited to judge the young artist - their curiosity only growing greater by Michelangelo's highly secretive methods. 

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In 1504, when Michelangelo had deemed his work of art completed, the cathedral committee had hoped to avoid a riot by unveiling the statue David in the middle of the night - but the plan backfired. Instead, the midnight spectacle drew a frenzied mob...

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