David

Donatello, the bronze David (1440s?), Bargello Florence, h.158 cm David is a bronze statue of the biblical hero by the Italian Early Renaissance sculptor Donatello, probably made in the 1440s, and now in the Bargello, Florence. Nude except for helmet and boots, it is famous as the first unsupported standing work of bronze cast during the Renaissance, and the first freestanding nude male sculpture made since antiquity. It depicts David with an enigmatic smile, posed with his foot on Goliath's severed head just after defeating the giant. The youth is completely naked, apart from a laurel-topped hat and boots, and holds Goliath's sword.

The creation of the work is undocumented. Most scholars assume the statue was commissioned by Cosimo de' Medici, but the date of its creation is unknown and widely disputed; suggested dates vary from the 1420s to the 1460s (Donatello died in 1466), with the majority opinion recently falling in the 1440s, when the new Medici Palace (now called the Palazzo Medici Riccardi) designed by Michelozzo was under construction.