David Sculpture Geometric Torso Michael Angelo

Michelangelo drew inspiration for this sculpture from the Biblical story of David, the tale  of a young shepherd boy who saved the Israelites by slaying the warrior giant Goliath wielding only a sling and a handful of stones. This classic underdog tale stars a feeble boy, but Michelangelo David is a pinnacle of male perfection. The “lithe” youth weighs nearly 12,500 pounds and stands a staggering 17 feet high (for the visual learners out there, that’s roughly the equivalent of a 2-story building, or an adult giraffe). The statue’s size is the result not of an overblown artistic ego (though Michelangelo was notoriously temperamental), but of simple logistics: originally intended for placement in a ceiling niche of the Florence Cathedral, the sculpture had to be sizeable enough to be viewed from the pews below.