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Europe 1300 - 1800
Course: Europe 1300 - 1800 > Unit 4
Lesson 4: Michelangelo- Michelangelo: Sculptor, Painter, Architect and Poet
- Who was Michelangelo?
- Michelangelo and his early drawings
- Pietà (marble sculpture)
- Michelangelo's David and the Florentine Republic
- Unfinished business—Michelangelo and the Pope
- Moses (marble sculpture)
- Moses (marble sculpture)
- Carving marble with traditional tools
- Slaves (marble sculptures)
- Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
- Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
- Studies for the Battle of Cascina and the Creation of Adam
- Studies for the Libyan Sibyl and a small Sketch for a Seated Figure (verso)
- Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (recto); Studies for the Libyan Sibyl and a small Sketch for a Seated Figure (verso)
- Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel
- Last Judgment, Sistine Chapel
- Last Judgment (altar wall, Sistine Chapel)
- Studies for the Last Judgment and a late crucifixion drawing
- Michelangelo, Medici Chapel (New Sacristy)
- Laurentian Library
- Replicating Michelangelo
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Michelangelo's David and the Florentine Republic
Michelangelo, David, 1501–04, marble, 17 feet high (The Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence), a conversation with Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris.
More art history on Smarthistory.org. Created by Beth Harris, Smarthistory, and Steven Zucker.
Video transcript
(jazzy piano music) - [Steven] We're in the
Academia in Florence, surrounded by lots of people who have come to see the sculpture by
Michelangelo of David. People love this sculpture, and people have always
loved this sculpture. - [Beth] But we're seeing it in a place that it was never intended
to be seen, inside a museum. This sculpture was commissioned to decorate the outside of a cathedral. - [Steven] Which for
such a young sculptor, was an enormous honor. - [Beth] He was 26 years old. - [Steven] The sculpture is so big because it was meant to be placed high up on the cathedral,
40 feet above street level. And so in order for it to be
visible, it had to be big. Now Michelangelo was given the commission just on the heels of his
success in Rome, the Pieta, and it was such an outstanding success that the Florentines decided
to give him an opportunity to carve an abandoned piece of marble, a huge block that had once been part of an earlier commission. - [Beth] For decades it had
laid beside the Cathedral, but in the early years of the 1500s, the government of Florence
decided to look back 100 years to what had been considered the Golden Age of the Florentine Republic, and commission sculptures
once again for the Cathedral. - [Steven] A lot had happened
in those intervening years. Florence was a Republic, but
one family in particular, the Medici, a banking family,
took more and more control over the course of the 15th century until they were really
sole rulers of the city, but still under the guise of the Republic. Late in the 15th century,
they were run out of town. - [Beth] And a Republic was reestablished, but this happened right at
the time of the ascendancy of a very charismatic
monk named Savonarola, who essentially began to
turn the newly reconstituted Republic of Florence
into a theocratic state. - [Steven] Savonarola believed
that Florence had gone astray in part because of its wealth, and an expression of that wealth was it's interest in humanism, it's interest in the arts,
and he's probably most famous for the Bonfire of the Vanities. That is his effort to rid the city of what he saw as the
corruption of wealth, burning manuscripts, burning paintings. But Savonarola's rule of
Florence does not continue. He's excommunicated by
the Pope, put under arrest and ultimately he's executed, and then his body is burned. - [Beth] The Florentine
government defeats two tyrants. They defeat first, the
Medici, and then Savonarola. And so it's critical to
see the sculpture of David against that background, especially because the
biblical figure of David meant something very special
to the Florentine people. - [Steven] The Bible tells us that David was a young shepherd, and his people were being
attacked by the Philistines. It seems certain that the
Israelites will be defeated, especially since none of their warriors are willing to go up against
this giant of a man Goliath. David, this young shepherd is willing to. He takes off his armor
before he goes into battle. He picks up a stone, places it in a sling, hits Goliath between the
eyes, fells the giant, and then cuts off his head
with the giant's own sword. - [Beth] It's a story
of good overcoming evil through God's favor, and the people of Florence
identified with David. They saw themselves as
an underdog like David, who had consistently defeated their enemy because of God's favor. - [Steven] And because
this story was so potent to the thinking of the
citizens of Florence, Michelangelo's sculpture was not the first to embody these ideas. Donatello, Verrocchio had
both produced sculptures of the young David that
spoke to the virtues of the city of Florence. - [Beth] Donatello's David had in fact been commissioned by the Medici, and had stood in their garden. Now, as soon as the Medici were ousted, the government of Florence
went into the Medici palace, took David and appropriated him as a symbol for the Republic. - [Steven] The subject of David could not have been more potent when he sets out to carve
this piece of abandoned stone. - [Beth] The other important piece to this is the rediscovery of ancient
Greek and Roman culture that happened, especially under
the patronage of the Medici, and especially for Michelangelo, this love of ancient
Greek and Roman sculpture and competing with those ancient models. - [Steven] Florence wanted to
see itself as the inheritor of the great humanist
traditions of ancient Rome, and the very stance of the sculpture with his weight on the right leg is taken directly from
classical antiquity. This is a stance that
we call contrapposto. - [Beth] Now in the earlier versions, we're looking at David after the fight, we're looking at the moment of victory, and he looks youthful and confident. - [Steven] And
contemplative, introspective, it's a moment of rest after the act. - [Beth] But here, the moment
when David looks across space and readies himself for the fight ahead. - [Steven] Sometimes this is
described as a pregnant moment, as this moment in immediate
anticipation of action. A moment that signals
what's about to happen. When I look at this sculpture,
I see his hips forward, his shoulders are forward, but his head is at three
quarters, it's turned. And if you look closely, his
eyes are turned even further. If I do this, it's only
comfortable for a second. He's just caught his
first glance of his enemy. - [Beth] Although the face
has this very powerful sense of the uncertainty of the future, that the pose itself of
contrapposto is a relaxed one. - [Steven] It's almost as
if he had been at rest. And now his body is just
being filled with the tension that is required for the coming battle. - [Beth] We don't really sense
David's confidence in God. We sent him as a human
being facing his enemy. - [Steven] And therefore this
must have been so reassuring because we all know the end of the story. David defeats Goliath. Florence will defeat its enemies. - [Beth] When the Florentine
people finally saw David, it was clear that it was too fabulous to place high up on the Cathedral, and so a new location
had to be found for it. Ultimately it was decided
to place the sculpture on a platform in front of the seat of government in Florence. - [Steven] Taking it from its
original religious context and placing it into a political context. - [Beth] This sculpture became a symbol of the newly reconstituted
Republic of Florence. - [Steven] Florence
had run the Medici out. Florence had gotten rid of Savonarola, and was trying to re-establish
itself as a Republic. - [Beth] The sculpture was so clearly now a symbol of the Florentine Republic, that stones were thrown at the sculpture by some people who were
loyal to the Medici. So we're really looking at a
very potent political symbol in addition to a almost
super human achievement. It's no wonder that Michelangelo got the nickname il
divino, the divine one. - [Steven] But it's so interesting because the people who flock
to see the sculpture today, are coming to see a work of art. This is a sculpture that was
commissioned for a church for a religious context. It's meaning was transformed into an almost purely political one, and it's been transformed again in the context of our
secular museum culture, into a work of art that can be understood as an expression of our history,
our aesthetic appreciation, and perhaps most of all
Michelangelo's mastery. (jazzy piano music)