<P> Michelangelo's David has become one of the most recognized works of Renaissance sculpture, a symbol of strength and youthful beauty . </P> <P> Just the colossal size of the statue impressed Michelangelo's contemporaries . Vasari described it as "certainly a miracle that of Michelangelo, to restore to life one who was dead," and then listed all of the largest and most grand of the ancient statues that he had ever seen, concluding that Michelangelo's work surpassed "all ancient and modern statues, whether Greek or Latin, that have ever existed ." </P> <P> The proportions of the David are atypical of Michelangelo's work; the figure has an unusually large head and hands (particularly apparent in the right hand). The small size of the genitals, though, is in line with his other works and with Renaissance conventions in general, perhaps referencing the ancient Greek ideal of pre-pubescent male nudity . These enlargements may be due to the fact that the statue was originally intended to be placed on the cathedral roofline, where the important parts of the sculpture may have been accentuated in order to be visible from below . The statue is unusually slender (front to back) in comparison to its height, which may be a result of the work done on the block before Michelangelo began carving it . </P> <P> It is possible that the David was conceived as a political statue before Michelangelo began to work on it . Certainly David the giant - killer had long been seen as a political figure in Florence, and images of the Biblical hero already carried political implications there . Donatello's bronze David, made for the Medici family, perhaps c. 1440, had been appropriated by the Signoria in 1494, when the Medici were exiled from Florence, and the statue was installed in the courtyard of the Palazzo della Signoria, where it stood for the Republican government of the city . By placing Michelangelo's statue in the same general location, the Florentine authorities ensured that David would be seen as a political parallel as well as an artistic response to that earlier work . These political overtones led to the statue being attacked twice in its early days . Protesters pelted it with stones the year it debuted, and, in 1527, an anti-Medici riot resulted in its left arm being broken into three pieces . </P>

Who was the statue of david modeled after