Michelangelo's David
This book takes a new look at the interpretations of, and the historical information surrounding, Michelangelo's David. New documentary materials discovered by Rolf Bagemihl add to the early history of the stone block that became the David and provide an identity for the painted terracotta colossus that stood on the cathedral buttresses for which Michelangelo's statue was to be a companion. The David, with its placement at the Palazzo della Signoria, was deeply implicated in the civic history of Florence, where public nakedness played a ritual role in the military and in the political lives of its people. This book, then, places the David not only within the artistic history of Florence and its monuments but also within the popular culture of the period as well.
- Highlights discoveries of new source material for the statue's history
- Rolf Bagemihl has also provided new translations of the documentary sources
- Includes appendices of all the archival information relevant to the David, edited by Rolf Bagemihl, who has re-edited previously published documentation
Reviews & endorsements
'Michelangelo's David is a valuable link in an ongoing chain of Michelangelo studies, and a detailed study of the extended history and ambiguity of the statue's historical, civic, political, and Christian connotations …' Joost Joustra, Oxford Art Journal
Product details
February 2015Adobe eBook Reader
9781316236352
0 pages
0kg
82 b/w illus.
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- 1. The commission and history of the David
- 2. David, narrative ambiguity, and the competition with antiquity
- 3. The David and sculpture at the cathedral
- 4. David and the symbols of the state at the Palazzo della Signoria
- 5. Naked men in piazza
- Appendix I: documents for Michelangelo's David and its predecessors
- Appendix II: report of the commission to advise on the placement of the David.