On this day - 8th September

1504
Italian sculptor, painter and poet Michelangelo unveils his 'Statue of David ' in Florence.

The history of Michelangelo's David precedes his work on it from 1501-1504, as far back as 1464. At that time the Overseers of the Office of Works of the Duomo (Operai), comprised mostly of members of the influential woolen cloth guild, the Arte della Lana, had plans to commission a series of twelve large Old Testament sculptures for the buttresses of the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. Until then only two had been created independently by Donatello and his assistant, Agostino di Duccio. Eager to continue their project, in 1464 they again contracted Agostino to create a sculpture of David. He only got as far as beginning to shape the legs, feet and chest of the figure, roughing out some drapery and probably gouging a hole between the legs. His association with the project, for reasons unknown, ceased with the death of his master Donatello in 1466, and Antonio Rossellino was commissioned to take up where Agostino had left off.
Rossellino's contract was terminated, soon thereafter, and the block of marble originally from a quarry in Carrara, a town in the Apuan Alps in northern Italy, remained neglected for twenty-five years, all the while exposed to the elements in the yard of the cathedral workshop. This was of great concern to the Operai authorities, as such a large piece of marble was both costly, and represented a large amount of labor and difficulty in its transportation to Florence. In 1500, an inventory of the cathedral workshops described the piece as, "a certain figure of marble called David, badly blocked out and supine." A year later, documents showed that the Operai were determined to find an artist who could take this large piece of marble and turn it into a finished work of art. They ordered the block of stone, which they called The Giant, "raised on its feet" so that a master experienced in this kind of work might examine it and express an opinion. Though Leonardo da Vinci and others were consulted, it was young Michelangelo, only twenty-six years old, who convinced the Operai that he deserved the commission. On August 16, 1501, Michelangelo was given the official contract to undertake this challenging new task. He began carving the statue early in the morning on Monday, September 13, a month after he was awarded the contract. He would work on the massive biblical hero for a little more than three years.