On the 14th of May, 1504, _Il Gigante_, as it was called by the Florentines, left Michelangelo's workshop and was dragged with much difficulty to the Piazza della Signoria, where it stood until the year 1873, when it was removed to the hall of the Accademia delle Belle Arti. It has fortunately suffered very little from its exposure in the mild Florentine air, but the left arm was shattered by a stone during the tumults of 1527. The broken pieces were carefully collected, however, by Vasari and a young sculptor, Cecchino De' Rossi, who restored the arm in 1543. Another giant David in bronze was commissioned to Michelangelo in 1502 by the Republic, who wished to make a present of it to a French statesman, Florimond Robertet, but although this work is known to have remained for more than a hundred years in the château of Bury, near Blois, it has since disappeared. While wrestling with the difficulties of his _David_, Michelangelo found time to accomplish many other important works, including two marble tondi in bas-relief, the first of which is now in the National Museum at Florence and the other in the Royal Academy, London. Both represent the _Madonna and Child with the Infant St. John_, and although lacking in finish they deserve to rank among the finest of Michelangelo's works. The composition is beautiful and simple, the modelling bold and the expression of the Madonna singularly noble and striking. In April, 1503, Michelangelo was commissioned by the Operai of the Duomo to carve out of Carrara marble twelve colossal statues of the Apostles, one to be finished each year, and a workshop was specially built for the sculptor in the Borgo Pinti, but the contract could not be carried out, the unfinished _St. Matthew_, now in the courtyard of the Accademia, in Florence, being the only work which resulted from this commission: "And in order not altogether to give up painting," says Condivi, "he executed a round panel of Our Lady for Messer Agnolo Doni, a Florentine citizen, for which he received seventy ducats." This tondo, representing _The Holy Family_, with nude figures in the background, is now in the Uffizi Gallery, and apart from its originality and artistic merit, it is especially interesting as being the only easel picture which may be attributed with absolute certainty to Michelangelo.