A little wonder, every day

The marble block for Michelangelo’s David

full-height view of Michelangelo’s *David* in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence; photograph by Clara Polo Sabat, 2017; CC BY-SA 4.0. Credit: Clara Polo Sabat, Wikimedia Commons; link to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0; no edits. Original file page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo%27s_David_%28Galleria_dell%27Accademia%2C_Firenze%2C_Italy%29.jpg. Downloaded the 960 × 1,440 px Commons version on 2026-10-28.

close view of the statue’s face and upper body in the same gallery; photograph by Dimitris Kamaras, 2016; CC BY 2.0. Credit: Dimitris Kamaras, Wikimedia Commons; link to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0; no edits. Original file page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo%27s_David%2C_Galleria_dell%27Accademia%2C_Florence_%2826404331700%29.jpg. Downloaded the 1,280 × 960 px Commons version on 2026-10-28.

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full-height view of Michelangelo’s *David* in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence; photograph by Clara Polo Sabat, 2017; CC BY-SA 4.0. Credit: Clara Polo Sabat, Wikimedia Commons; link to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0; no edits. Original file page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo%27s_David_%28Galleria_dell%27Accademia%2C_Firenze%2C_Italy%29.jpg. Downloaded the 960 × 1,440 px Commons version on 2026-10-28.

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Michelangelo carved *David* from a large marble block that two sculptors had worked on before him. Agostino di Duccio began shaping the stone in 1464, and Antonio Rossellino took it up around 1475; both left the work unfinished. In 1501, Florence’s Opera del Duomo entrusted the block to Michelangelo, who completed the statue in 1504. So there was more than one earlier sculptor.