The _David_, now in the Accademia at Florence, inaugurates the series of Michelangelo's colossal statues. It will be remembered that the master undertook to utilize a huge block of marble already rough-hewn by an unskilful sculptor, and that he succeeded in hewing this magnificent statue, without adding any other piece at all, so exactly to the size that the old surface of the marble may still be seen on the top of the head and in the base. What most surprises the modern artist when studying not only this, but all Michelangelo's colossal works, both in painting and in sculpture, is the perfect finish of every detail. The fearless eyes, the shapely ear, the firm set mouth, the powerful hand nervously grasping the death-dealing missile, could not have been more carefully modelled in a statuette, and casts of each individual limb are still set before students to copy and admire in every studio of the world. In 1501, when Michelangelo began this work, he was still free and unfettered, justly proud of the fame which his _Pietà_ had brought him, and with the world literally at his feet. This young giant boldly taking aim at an unknown but formidable enemy, might well be regarded as an allegorical representation of the artist himself, on the eve of grappling with his fate. It may be taken for certain that a quarter of a century later he would have interpreted the same theme very differently, and would perhaps have given us David the King, or David the Psalmist and the Prophet, instead of this magnificent embodiment of conscious power and hope. The fierce frown, the expression of strenuous force victoriously struggling against overwhelming odds, all those characteristics, in short, which have been summed up in the word _terribilità_ by his contemporaries, would have been replaced by the sombre majesty of the _Moses_, or the despairing expression of conquered, impotent strength which is the key-note to such works as the Medicean Tombs, the Louvre Captives, and the _Last Judgment_. Critics casting about for an artistic derivation of Michelangelo's earlier works maintain that the _David's_ face bears a resemblance to the features of Donatello's Saint George in Or San Michele, but the type is far more virile and energetic, recalling, if anything, the masterpieces of ancient art.