Description
The Galleria dell'Accademia is the museum in Florence where you will find Michelangelo's David: on Via Ricasoli, next to the Academy of Fine Arts, it also holds six other sculptures by the same artist and a large collection of gold-ground paintings.
The museum was born in 1784 as a gallery for fine arts students, who came here to copy the masters. The David arrived much later, in 1873, and today it is the reason almost everyone walks in.
The route is designed as a crescendo. You pass through the Hall of the Prisoners, with the male nudes Michelangelo carved for the tomb of Pope Julius II, and arrive at the Tribune of the David, where the statue can be seen from afar, lit from above by a skylight.
The David is 5.17 meters tall, including the base. Michelangelo chose to show the moment before the battle: the muscles are at rest but full of strength, the brow furrowed, the gaze fixed on the giant Goliath, a stone clutched in the right hand.
Up close you notice the details: the vein running down the neck, the tendons, the pupils drilled to play with shadows. The head and hands are slightly enlarged, because the statue was meant to be seen from below.
The rest of the museum tells the story of Florentine Gothic painting, with gold-ground panels, and houses the Bartolini Plaster Gallery, where the sculptor's plaster casts are arranged as they were in his studio in the San Frediano district.
For almost forty years nobody had managed to get anything out of the great block of marble from the Duomo, narrow, full of cracks and already ruined by two sculptors. Florentines called it "the Giant." In 1501 they handed it to Michelangelo, who was just over twenty-five.
The David was placed in front of Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of the Florentine Republic standing watch against its enemies. The journey from the workshop took four days, with more than forty men hauling it in a wooden cage.
There it stood for almost four centuries. In 1873, to protect it, it was moved on rails to the Accademia, where it spent nine years shut in its crate, waiting for the hall built just for it.
Don't miss
• The Tribune of the David.
• Michelangelo's Prisoners.
• The Bartolini Plaster Gallery.
Did you know?
• In 1527, during a riot, furniture hurled from the windows of Palazzo Vecchio broke the David's left arm into three pieces: two boys saved them, one of whom was the young Vasari.
• The Prisoners were used by the Medici as ornaments for Buontalenti's grotto in the Boboli Garden, and arrived here only in 1909.
• In 1991 a man struck the left foot with a hammer.
The museum was born in 1784 as a gallery for fine arts students, who came here to copy the masters. The David arrived much later, in 1873, and today it is the reason almost everyone walks in.
The route is designed as a crescendo. You pass through the Hall of the Prisoners, with the male nudes Michelangelo carved for the tomb of Pope Julius II, and arrive at the Tribune of the David, where the statue can be seen from afar, lit from above by a skylight.
The David is 5.17 meters tall, including the base. Michelangelo chose to show the moment before the battle: the muscles are at rest but full of strength, the brow furrowed, the gaze fixed on the giant Goliath, a stone clutched in the right hand.
Up close you notice the details: the vein running down the neck, the tendons, the pupils drilled to play with shadows. The head and hands are slightly enlarged, because the statue was meant to be seen from below.
The rest of the museum tells the story of Florentine Gothic painting, with gold-ground panels, and houses the Bartolini Plaster Gallery, where the sculptor's plaster casts are arranged as they were in his studio in the San Frediano district.
For almost forty years nobody had managed to get anything out of the great block of marble from the Duomo, narrow, full of cracks and already ruined by two sculptors. Florentines called it "the Giant." In 1501 they handed it to Michelangelo, who was just over twenty-five.
The David was placed in front of Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of the Florentine Republic standing watch against its enemies. The journey from the workshop took four days, with more than forty men hauling it in a wooden cage.
There it stood for almost four centuries. In 1873, to protect it, it was moved on rails to the Accademia, where it spent nine years shut in its crate, waiting for the hall built just for it.
Don't miss
• The Tribune of the David.
• Michelangelo's Prisoners.
• The Bartolini Plaster Gallery.
Did you know?
• In 1527, during a riot, furniture hurled from the windows of Palazzo Vecchio broke the David's left arm into three pieces: two boys saved them, one of whom was the young Vasari.
• The Prisoners were used by the Medici as ornaments for Buontalenti's grotto in the Boboli Garden, and arrived here only in 1909.
• In 1991 a man struck the left foot with a hammer.