Michelangelo's David and the Florentine Republic

With the Medici driven out, Florence's republic gave the young Michelangelo a giant marble block that earlier sculptors had abandoned. He carved David, the youth who felled Goliath, and in 1504 the city placed him at the door of the Palazzo Vecchio, its seat of government, as an emblem of a small republic facing stronger enemies. The statue moved indoors to the Accademia in 1873.