SPEAKER 1: We're in the Bargello in Florence,
in an enormous vaulted room.
This is a building that was used for judicial purposes.
Now it's a museum.
And it holds Donatello's David, one
of the most important sculptures of the early Renaissance
SPEAKER 2: Important because it was
the first free-standing nude sculpture
since classical antiquity.
Quite an achievement.
SPEAKER 1: So for 1,000 years, the Christian West
had looked to the soul as the place to focus.
The body was seen as a path to corruption,
and so it was not to be celebrated.
What we're seeing here is a return
to Ancient Greece and Rome's love of the body, its respect
for the body, which is so evident.
SPEAKER 2: It really is.
Donatello's looked back in ancient Greek and Roman
sculpture also for the position that David is standing in,
the position of contrapposto which is a very relaxed pose,
where the weight is placed on one leg, the other leg is bent.
And the figure has-- because of contrapposto--
has a sense of movement.
In the Renaissance, this figure looked remarkably alive,
given the way that medieval sculpture
had looked for so long.
SPEAKER 1: It's detached from any kind of figural group
or any kind of architecture.
And so there really is a sense of autonomy,
as if this figure could move forward of its own accord.
The figure is referencing the classical
in another way, as well in its very material nature.
This is bronze, largely copper with a little bit of tin
added to it to give it strength.
And it's actually hollow, it's created
through a technique which is known
as lost-wax casting, which the ancient Romans and the ancient
Greeks before them had employed.
And which had been used throughout the medieval period,
but not at this scale.
And it was just in the early Renaissance
that artists are beginning to re-explore
how to create bronze sculptures that are this large.
SPEAKER 2: David is very young, and it's hard
not to see a kind of sensuality in the way
that David puts his hand on his hip and looks down.
And the fact that he's wearing boots and a hat
and is otherwise nude, there's a kind of eroticism here.
SPEAKER 1: And that's especially evident if you look at the fact
that David is standing on the now severed head of Goliath.
In fact, in his right hand he's holding Goliath's own sword
which David has used.
But because he's standing on that head that
pushes his leg up, one of the wings of the helmet
is just riding up the inner thigh, perhaps a little
too high, In fact.
So there really is a kind of overt sexuality here.
And it's so interesting because it's
at odds with the civic symbolism of this sculpture.
This was a sculpture that was really
important to the city of Florence.
And yet, it has this very intimate quality to it.
SPEAKER 2: It was the seen in the 1460s in the Medici garden.
Although we're not exactly sure who commissioned it,
it's likely that it was a Medici.
SPEAKER 1: So the Medici palace had a large entrance way,
and there was a kind of axes that
allowed you see directly into the garden.
And this would have been visible in the center of it.
SPEAKER 2: That's right.
It's really important for us to remember that to the Florentine
people, this wasn't just King David from the Bible.
There were all sorts of associations.
First of all, David in the biblical story
defeats his enemy-- even though he's
the underdog-- he defeats his enemy with God's help.
The Florentine people felt very much identified with David
because like David, they had defeated their enemy
or they-- this is how they saw it--
they had defeated their enemy, the Duke of Milan
in this early 15th century, with the help of God.
In fact, they felt blessed and chosen
by God, and the heirs of the ancient Roman Republic.
And so the subject of David represented
Florence, the Florentine Republic.
SPEAKER 1: So Goliath, in a sense,
takes on the role of the Duke of Milan.
Milan was significantly stronger than Florence,
which was a mercantile culture, as opposed to a military power.
And Florence was, of course, a republic
whereas Milan was an autocracy.
That is, it had a single ruler.
SPEAKER 2: And so David became a symbol
of the Florentine Republic.
Anyone looking at this sculpture in the Medici garden
in the 15th century would have understood David as a reference
to the liberties and the freedoms that
were so cherished by the Florentine people,
and had been threatened by the Duke of Milan.
SPEAKER 1: On the other hand, you
could say that the Medici we usurping this civic symbolism
for themselves in some ways.
And in fact, when the Medici were run out of town,
this sculpture was actually taken
to the signoria, that is to the town hall,
and made a public sculpture.
And so there is really the sense of the investment
of this culture in this story.
SPEAKER 2: Right.
And so by having it in the Medici garden,
appropriating this symbol of the city and all
that was great about the city, Medici
were appropriating that for themselves.
SPEAKER 1: So here in this sculpture
is this embodiment of the promise of a long rule.
David will grow up to be king, to have been enormously wise.
And in a sense, it was a perfect kind of story for the Medici
to put forward as a representation, not only
the city, but specifically of their own rule within the city.
SPEAKER 2: Right.
So they're sort of identifying themselves
as the city of Florence.
Identifying themselves with youthfulness, with King David,
and with all that's great about the Florentine Republic.
SPEAKER 1: And although this is a sculpture that's about war,
the symbols are clearly about David and peace,
and the Medici and peace.
David wears a soft hat as opposed to the helmet of war
that Goliath wears.
David has severed Goliath's head with Goliath's
own battle-hardened sword.
If you look at that sword closely,
you can see that there are notches out of it.
It's been in many, many battles.
David needs to borrow it in order to sever that head.
But in David's other hand, in his left hand, he holds a rock.
Presumably the rock that he used in the slingshot to
actually fell the giant in the first place.
But I think it's interesting that Donatello here,
a sculptor, is actually portraying that rock as,
in a sense, the opposing weapon to the sword.
That is a material that Donatello, as a sculptor,
often carves.
He works in marble as often as he does in bronze, perhaps more
often.
And so are these, in a sense, the two weapons
of the two cities?
Either the violence of Milan versus the culture of Florence?
SPEAKER 2: The iconography, all of the meanings, David and what
that meant to the city of Florence.
That eroticism, or even the homo-eroticism, art historians
are not really sure about all of those
meanings for the 15th century Florentine people.
And some art historians have even
suggested that the identification
of this figure as David is not even completely secure.
That it could also have been read as Mercury.
And so we see it in a complicated way,
and it's quite likely that the people of Florence,
in the 15th century, saw it in a complicated way
and had multiple readings of it.
SPEAKER 1: It's an important reminder that art history
itself is a process of trying to restore meaning and understand
meaning through the lens of time.
And--
SPEAKER 2: It is, after all, 600 years old.
SPEAKER 1: That's right.
But nevertheless, it is one of the great sculptures that
really embodies so many of the ideals and so many
of the concerns of the 15th century.