Michelangelo’s David: A Model of Divine Masculinity
By Elizabeth Weinberg
At a towering seventeen feet tall, Michelangelo’s David is one of the most famous and glorified Renaissance sculptures still standing today. It has been described as a ‘manifesto for a new, heroic conception of man whose moral solidity is reflected in the restrained gesture, proud glance, and the athletic beauty of the body’ (Gamba, 2005: 21). Previous illustrations of David presented the adolescent boy in biblical stories, however Michelangelo’s interpretation transformed David into a masculinely built, god-like man. In 16th century Florence, this model of masculinity served both a political and social purpose in moulding the ‘Renaissance man’.
The Republic of Florence was inhabited by wealthy merchants and businessmen who displayed their status through education, civic engagement, and artistic patronage. Michelangelo had studied with the humanist Poliziano and became acquainted with Neo-Platonic philosophers such as Marsilio Ficino, Cristoforo Landino, and Pico della Mirandola while at Lorenzo Medici’s court (Kristeller, 1961: 148). The court’s classically-inspired ‘Platonic Academy’ blended humanist theory with Christian piety in order to legitimise the interest in pagan antiquity due to the recent rediscovery of Roman art and translation of ancient texts (Olszewski, 2015: 121). The Uomo Universale, the Universal or Renaissance man, was an idealised model of man based on these humanist philosophies (Britannica, 2020). Such a man would be active in civic life, classically educated, physically athletic, and devoutly religious. Elements of this idealised model resonate in Michelangelo’s David.
In the same sculptural milieu as Donatello’s marble David, which had signified Florentine resistance facing north towards the ‘Milanese Goliath’ in 1408, Michelangelo’s David developed into a symbol of liberty and victory (Levine, 1974: 34). Both statues had initially been commissioned for the Duomo di Firenze. However, the placement of Michelangelo’s David in the same Palazzo della Signoria as Donatello’s in 1504, replacing Donatello’s bronze Judith and Holofernes, marked its status as an emblem of the new Florentine Republic. The Palazzo Vecchio which David guards was the town hall and as such, the civic heart where the male members of Florence’s government assembled. Inside the Salone dei Cinquecento was Michelangelo’s unfinished fresco of the Battle of Cascina, another work featuring an array of nude muscular bodies engaged in warfare (Rubin, 2009: 441). The subject of the fresco was a historical Florentine military victory. It depicted a scene at the beginning of the battle before the Florentine soldiers unexpectedly defeat the Pisans. Like this history painting, David’s powerful and demanding position in front of the palazzo served as a ‘backdrop’ to the men governing Florence as they debated the state’s defensive strategies. David’s specific positioning allowed his head to face south against the ‘Medicean Goliath’ during the Borgian-Medicean campaign against Florence. Levine argues that David’s left hand ‘points to the head to underscore the capacity of the intellecto of the Florentine mind,’ which again would support its placement near the house of the intelligencia (Levine, 1985: 19). Given these strong political undertones, it’s understandable to view the character of David simply as a political symbol of Florence, yet Michelangelo’s representation of David is distinctly different than previous depictions.
Shortly after the instalment of the statue, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote his political treatise The Prince in which he uses the biblical hero David as an ‘allegorical figura of the militia, the personification of the city's native troops’ (Barolsky, 2004: 32). Both Barolsky and de Tolnay rightly argue that Machiavelli exploited Michelangelo’s image of David to inspire the creation of a Florentine army, a militia of ‘cittadino guerriero’ (citizen solders) as opposed to hiring less loyal foreign mercenaries. Unlike the youthful boyish Davids of previous Renaissance works, Michelangelo created a hero which aligned with a nationalist military image. This can be drawn from Leon Battista Alberti’s The Family in Renaissance Florence where he examines ‘the beauty of a man accustomed to arms,’ declaring that masculine beauty lies in ‘limbs full of strength, and the gestures of one who is skilled and adept in all forms of exercise’ (Alberti, 1994). The choice to depict David without the head of Goliath, as seen in Donatello’s versions, but rather with slingshot in hand before the battle, should be interpreted as proving this specific David’s role ‘not as a biblical hero, but as the defender and just administrator of his people’ (Levine, 1974: 34).
As mentioned, the rediscovery of Greek and Roman texts and art reintroduced classical culture. This included statues such as the Apollo Belvedere, the Belvedere Torso and the Laocoon and His Sons, all of which depicted powerful bodies similar to that of Michelangelo’s David. David’s Herculean stance is especially similar to the contrapposto and profiled head found in the Apollo Belvedere. His proportions exhibit those specified by Leonardo da Vinci just over a decade earlier in his Vitruvian Man, which used mathematics to calculate perfectly balanced human proportions based on the dimensions of the Golden Ratio found in classical architecture by the Roman architect Vitruvius (Sohm, 1995: 765). Even David’s features match those described by Aristotle in his Physiognomonica, a translation of which had been published in 1472 after previously being translated by Bartholomew of Messina ca. 1250. Aristotle had argued that physical appearance is a reflection of character, explaining that a courageous soul displays ‘coarse hair... size and strength of bones… the belly broad and flat… a sturdy neck... the thickness of the calf low down on the leg…(and) gleaming eyes’ (Olszewski, 2015: 122). These sentiments were echoed by the contemporary Pietro Bembo who theorised that "since a body is beautiful because its members adhere to a proportion in relation to each other, so too a soul is beautiful to the extent that its virtues harmonise with each other" (Sohm, 1995: 770).
In addition to the statue’s bodily form, its nudity is reflective of classical sculpture as figures were often depicted nude. Robin Osborne argues that ‘the exposure of male flesh is an act of heroisation’, which would suit David’s role both in the bible and as a political symbol (Osborne, 1997: 505). However James Connor asserts that ‘their nakedness was a sign of their perfection because the gods had nothing to hide’ (Olszewski, 2015: 122). While David is not a god, as a Florentine symbol his godly appearance suggests that the Florentine cause is a divine one. It is important to note that the artistic interest in the human body and Renaissance popularity of classical-style art doubtlessly influenced David’s decided nudity. That is not to say that his ‘heroic nudity’ did not symbolise his divine or heroic status, especially as a biblical character, but Michelangelo would have understood his patrons’ classical interests and the effect of classical imagery.
Athleticism and warfare went hand-in-hand as the physical activities of men, both ‘commanding respect as a discipline of the body’ as distinctly masculine activities (Hairston, 2010: ix). Michelangelo’s muscular David was more obviously suitable to represent the Florentine solders and leaders than the earlier feminine Davids. Patricia Rubin describes both Donatello and Verrocchio’s Davids as ‘hermaphroditic adolescents’ due to their ‘softly curving body and tender flesh,’ which would be stereotypically ‘feminised as a sexual object’ (Rubin, 2009: 429). This is a reflection of the common sexual and romantic relationships between adult men and adolescent boys, often between artists and their young models or apprentices. To symbolise Florence, the new heroic David could not be such an object, requiring a less feminised vision. Therefore the muscular David, though nude, had different connotations than Donatello and Verrocchio’s statues as his figure is active and masculine.
Since the ancient theory of Humorism, men and women had been assigned both physical and temperamental qualities which dictated their social roles. Much like Aristotle’s assertion that the body represents the character and soul, Cennino Cennini's studio manual Libro dell’ Arte written in 1395 dictated that woman, as the reasonless and irrational sex, does not have ‘perfect proportion’ as man does (Sohm, 1995: 778). Looking back to antiquity, Aristotle’s Metaphysics proclaimed that masculinity was authoritative while femininity was subordinate, with men and women as dualities such as ‘stable/mutable, determinate/indeterminate and good/evil’ (Sohm, 1995: 768). David’s muscularity then denotes a masculine activeness while proportion implies harmony and intellect, all qualities crucial for the Renaissance Man. ‘Disegno’, or design, is another masculine attribute which Michelangelo himself portrays as the creator of David. The term implies education, intellect, creativity, and the ‘ability to create divine images just as God the Father did’ (Sohm, 1995: 783) It is again important to refer back to nudity, which allows the display of genitalia to mark David’s gender. While the biblical text does not illustrate David as nude, Machiavelli wrote that David refused the armour Saul had offered him, and fought with his own sling and knife (Barolsky, 2004: 32). Unlike Renaissance women who were dependent on men as their guardians, the man is presented as independent and athletically inclined. In this sense, his deliberate gendering, which was initially proudly presented before being covered by a loin-garland, alludes to masculine pride and male valour.
Few figures were publicly depicted nude in Renaissance art due to a religious fear of sexual implications. However, the Christ child was often depicted nude with his genitalia exposed openly as he was free from sin and therefore free from shame. While David was a biblical figure, his own nudity could not be paralleled to Christ’s. Leo Steinberg argues that the deliberate display and references to Christ's genitalia are an assertion and celebration of his humanity (Steinberg, 1983: 9). Like Christ, David’s humanity, and more specifically his masculinity, are being celebrated in its exposure. This is why Michelangelo’s marble Risen Christ and his martyrs in the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel share similar figures and postures to his David and marble Genius of Victory; Michelangelo is elevating the human man by paralleling his figure to that of Christ.
Religious symbolism is also found in the statue’s enlarged hands. In his biblical narrative, David states “I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is my right hand, that I should not be moved” (Levine, 1985: 18). Levine argues that David’s large right hand refers to David’s ‘manu fortis’, meaning a strong hand, as an indication of his morality and faith. The right hand is continually mentioned in the Bible, especially in reference to Dextera Domini, the right hand of God. God’s right side is considered to be a place of honour. Numerous martyrs, including Christ, are placed in heaven ‘at the right hand of God’ in Mark 16:19, Luke 22:69, Hebrews 1:13, and Acts 7:55 (Bible Gateway, 2022). The textual significance of the hands along with the prominence and detail of David’s hands, particularly the right hand which points down towards the viewer, suggests a relationship between the viewer, David, and God. The gesture of David’s right hand closely resembles that of Adam as he touches the hand of God in Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam. Like David, Adam represents man who is at the right hand of God. These figures reminded their male-viewers that ‘God created mankind in his own image,’ implying man’s perfect form and being (Genesis 1:27) (Bible Gateway, 2022). In reiterating man’s divine creation, the David statue encourages Christian identity by making it congruent with an idealised physical form.
Michelangelo’s David was used as an emblem of the Florentine Renaissance Man; a member of the ‘cittadino guerriero’ representing liberty and victory, a reflection of classical artistry and neoplatonic intelligence, a model of heroic athleticism and masculine form, and a reminder of man’s divinity. This example of masculinity both inspired and glorified the Florentine man, particularly the Signoria of Florence and the magistrates who held office in the surrounding palazzos.
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