This points to another key aspect of the work: its original placement upon an elevated column. In this patriarchal world, this androgyny may have been yet another reminder of his ineptness for battle. Renaissance Italy was male dominated: power passed from father to son and both religious and secular authorities insisted upon the superiority of men and masculinity. When viewed from up close—an experience likely only available to privileged visitors to the palazzo—this androgynous nudity is further complicated by erotic undertones.
Feather detail , Donatello, David , c. Scholars have tied this eroticism to Florentine obsession with youthful male beauty, an interest that is evidenced in numerous works of art and even brought the ire of Florentine preachers who called it a sinful perversion.
The fact that the sword, hat, and sandals are of contemporary Florentine fashion and not that of biblical times, suggests a connection to these renaissance preoccupations. Donatello, David , —09, marble, x By the time the bronze David was created, the hero was already a symbol of the Florentine Republic.
By placing this civic hero in their private courtyard, the Medici claimed for themselves this state symbol, making David a Medici emblem as well as a Florentine one. Cosimo and his family likely wanted all visitors to their palace to regard them—like David—as defenders of liberty. The Victor is whoever defends the fatherland! God crushes the wrath of an enormous foe. A boy overcame a great tyrant.
Conquer, O citizens! Donatello, Judith and Holofernes , bronze, c. Another work by Donatello displayed nearby in the palazzo also supports this message. Judith was understood to be an exemplar of virtue; like David she was a heroine of the Hebrew Bible who slayed an enemy leader and thus liberated her people. It is recorded as the centerpiece of the first courtyard in the Palazzo Medici during the wedding festivities of Lorenzo de' Medici and Clarice Orsini in Some have argued that it was commissioned by Cosimo de' Medici in the s to be the centerpiece of the courtyard of the older Medici house on the Via Larga.
The following collection of images demonstrates the wide popularity of the image of David and Goliath in fifteenth century Florentine art. It is well known that David was a symbol of the Florentine Republic, which like the Old Testament youth stood up to its rivals. Andrea del Verrocchio, David , c. Commissioned by the Medici, the Verrocchio David bought by the city government in and placed in the Sala dei Gigli in the Palazzo Vecchio. Donatello, David, c.
Reworked in , and placed in the Sala dei Gigli in the Palazzo Vecchio. The nakedness of Donatello's bronze David stands out starkly in contrast to the other fifteenth century images of David.
Even though other works show knowledge of the Donatello bronze, like the hand holding the sword in Bellano's David or the hand on the hip in the Master of the David and Saint John Statuettes, David, none of them repeat the nudity of the Donatello. The choice of bronze, the nudity, and the contrapposto pose all put this work in the Humanist context of emulating the antique. While referencing the classical contrapposto pose in the tradition of Polyclitus's Doryphoros , Donatello has softened the static balance and firm stance of the traditional male figure.
This softening is evident in the placement of the two hands as well as the way David's free leg gently rests on the head of Goliath.
The smooth, polished skin is set off against the rougher boots and curly locks of hair. This reference to touch is especially apparent in the detail of the feather stroking the inner thigh of David's leg and in the detail of the way David runs his toes through the locks of Goliath's beard.
There is a disjunction between David's refined and graceful pose with the apparent reverie and beauty of the facial expression and the gruesomeness of the decapitated head of Goliath at his feet. It is hard to imagine this beautiful youth has moments ago had been engaged in mortal combat and cut off the head of Goliath.
A useful interpretive strategy has been to place the statue in the context of fifteenth century notions of male identity. Whereas girls became brides in their teens, men did not marry generally until their mid-twenties or later. Adolescence was thus an extended period between childhood and full adult maturity for the male in Renaissance Florence. Portraits of youthful males like the Botticelli above have a strong effeminate quality.
The figure's slim proportions, long locks of hair, and detached glance parallel those of the Donatello David. The social construction of the adolescent in Renaissance Florence is given visual form in these representations.
Excerpt from Adrian W. So famous was the city on the Arno for promoting it, that in Germany, homosexual sex was described by the verb florenzen, and in France its was called "the Florentine vice. Sodomy, rather than representing a dusty and esoteric corner of historical analysis, moves to center stage. No longer can modern binaries emphasizing heterosexual relations be taken as an unquestioned given.
We must realign our sights on the past, taking into account the cultural norm produced by homosexual relations in early modernity. Another of Rocke's conclusions follows from this. Male-male sexual relations were not eccentric, but they were in fact important constituent elements in the production of Renaissance masculinity and therefore contributed fundamentally to the shape of public life in a broad sense.
For the condemnation of homosexual relations did more than yield interest for dowries and build communal brothels, it also structured social relations, and most importantly, relations between men. It would, as Rocke indicated, be misleading to speak of a "homosexual subculture" in fifteenth-century Florence. Homosexual relations, although proscribed and circumscribed, were nonetheless a pervasive and "centric" mode of behavior, linking individuals normally separated by class and by neighborhood affiliations It occcurred throughout the city, involving men from all walks of life.
Here, however, we have a stark change in the way David is depicted. In Middle Ages, nudity was not used in art except in certain moral contexts, such as the depiction of Adam and Eve, or the sending of souls off to hell.
In the classical world, nudity was often used in a different, majestic context, such as with figures who were gods, heroes, or athletes. Here, Donatello seems to be calling to mind the type of heroic nudity of antiquity, since David is depicted at triumphal point in the biblical narrative of his victory over Goliath. David looks young here — so young, in fact, that his muscles have barely developed enough to hold the large sword — that his victory over his foe is all the more improbable.
It was revolutionary for its day — so much so that it did not get copied right away. The idea of the life-sized nude sculpture-in-the-round evidently took some time to sink in and become an acceptable statue type.
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