[All translations are from the Loeb Classical Library unless otherwise specified.]
Tucked away from the courtyard of the Bargello are three statues of David: a marble statue (c. 1409) and a bronze statue (c. 1445) by Donatello, and another bronze statue by Andrea del Verocchio (c. 1475). To the uninitiated, these three are merely different takes on a Biblical figure, aesthetically pleasing, and differing only slightly in form and date. To the art historian, these three statues show how the polis of Florence sought to think of itself as it moved from constitutional rule to a brazen oligarchy to a de facto monarchy (and if we are to believe Piero Soderini, a tyrannical one). Donatello’s marble David is also a potent symbol of how change — the kind that can be appreciated, in any matter — is always a slow, gradual process; it stands on the precipice between the medieval and the modern, the Gothic and the Renaissance, combining with astute skill and genius the slender grace of the figures at Chatres and Reims with the ever-so-slight contrapposto that would prominently feature in yet another marble statue of David, this time by Michelangelo, whose revolutionary republicanism inspired a rather moving image that featured prominently in Florentine imagery. But when did the Gothic end — and when did the Renaissance begin? The tail end of the former and the origins of the latter are almost fungible.
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