Galleria dell’Accademia
The Prisoners (Prigioni, c. 1516-1534)
Bust of Michelangelo by da Volterra
One of Europe’s great thrills is seeing Michelangelo’s David in the flesh at the Accademia Gallery. Seventeen feet high, gleaming white, and exalted by a halo-like dome over his head, David rarely disappoints, even for those with high expectations. And the Accademia doesn’t stop there. With a handful of other Michelangelo statues and a few other interesting sights, it makes for an uplifting visit that isn’t overwhelming. David is a must-see on any visit to Florence, so plan for it.
(See “Heart of Florence” map, here.)
Cost: €6.50, temporary exhibits raise price to €11, additional €4 fee for recommended reservation; covered by Firenze Card.
Hours: Tue-Sun 8:15-18:50, closed Mon, last entry 30 minutes before closing.
Avoiding Lines: In peak season (April-Oct), it’s smart to buy a Firenze Card or reserve ahead (see here and here for info on both options). Those with reservations or the Firenze Card line up at the entrance labeled With Reservations. If you show up without a reservation or Firenze Card, and there’s a long line, try dropping by the My Accademia Libreria reservation office, just across the street from the exit, to see if they have any times available later that day (€4 reservation charge).
When to Go: In peak season, the museum is most crowded on Sun, Tue, and between about 11:00 and 13:00. On off-season weekdays (Nov-March), you can sometimes get in with no reservation and no lines if you go before 8:30 or after 16:00.
Getting There: It’s at Via Ricasoli 60, a 15-minute walk from the train station or a 10-minute walk northeast of the Duomo. Taxis are reasonable.
Information: Exhibits are explained in English, and a small bookstore sells guidebooks near the ticket booths at the entrance. Another bookstore (inside and near the exit) and several shops outside sell postcards, books, and posters. Reservation tel. 055-294-883, www.polomuseale.firenze.it.
Audioguide: A €6 audioguide (€10/2 people) is available in the ticket lobby. You can also download this chapter as a free Rick Steves audio tour (see here).
Length of This Tour: While David and the Prisoners can be seen in 30 minutes, allow an hour if you wish to linger and explore other parts of the museum.
Services: The museum has no bag-check service, and large backpacks are not allowed. WCs are downstairs near the entrance/exit.
Photography: Photos and videos are prohibited.
Cuisine Art: Gelateria Carabè, popular for its sumptuous granite (fresh-fruit Italian ices) is a block toward the Duomo, at Via Ricasoli 60 red. Picnickers can stock up at Il Centro Supermercati, a half-block north (open daily, also has curbside sandwich bar, Via Ricasoli 109). At Piazza San Marco, you can get pizza by the slice from Pugi (#10) and refill your water bottle (in the traffic circle park). See here for eateries and picnic options.
Starring: Michelangelo’s David and Prisoners.
(See “Accademia Overview” map, here.)
• From the entrance lobby, show your ticket, turn left, and look right down the long hall with David at the far end, under a halo-like dome. Yes, you’re really here. With David presiding at the “altar,” the Prisoners lining the “nave,” and hordes of “pilgrims” crowding in to look, you’ve arrived at Florence’s “cathedral of humanism.”
Start with the ultimate...
When you look into the eyes of Michelangelo’s David, you’re looking into the eyes of Renaissance Man. This 17-foot-tall symbol of divine victory over evil represents a new century and a whole new Renaissance outlook. This is the age of Columbus and classicism, Galileo and Gutenberg, Luther and Leonardo—of Florence and the Renaissance.
In 1501, Michelangelo Buonarroti, a 26-year-old Florentine, was commissioned to carve a large-scale work for the Duomo. He was given a block of marble that other sculptors had rejected as too tall, shallow, and flawed to be of any value. But Michelangelo picked up his hammer and chisel, knocked a knot off what became David’s heart, and started to work.
The figure comes from a Bible story. The Israelites, God’s chosen people, are surrounded by barbarian warriors led by a brutish giant named Goliath. The giant challenges the Israelites to send out someone to fight him. Everyone is afraid except for one young shepherd boy—David. Armed only with a sling, which he’s thrown over his shoulder, David gathers five smooth stones from the stream and faces Goliath.
The statue captures David as he’s sizing up his enemy. He stands relaxed but alert, leaning on one leg in a classical pose known as contrapposto. In his powerful right hand, he fondles the handle of the sling, ready to fling a stone at the giant. His gaze is steady—searching with intense concentration, but also with extreme confidence. Michelangelo has caught the precise moment when David is saying to himself, “I can take this guy.”
Note that while the label on David indicates that he’s already slain the giant, the current director of the Accademia believes, as I do, that Michelangelo has portrayed David facing the giant. Unlike most depictions of David after the kill, this sculpture does not show the giant’s severed head. There’s also a question of exactly how David’s sling would work. Is he holding the stone in his right or left hand? Does the right hand hold the sling’s pouch or the retention handle of a sling? Scholars debate Sling Theory endlessly.
David is a symbol of Renaissance optimism. He’s no brute. He’s a civilized, thinking individual who can grapple with and overcome problems. He needs no armor, only his God-given body and wits. Look at his right hand, with the raised veins and strong, relaxed fingers—many complained that it was too big and overdeveloped. But this is the hand of a man with the strength of God. No mere boy could slay the giant. But David, powered by God, could...and did.
Originally, the statue was commissioned to stand along the southern roofline of the Duomo. But during the three years it took to sculpt, they decided instead to place it guarding the entrance of Town Hall—the Palazzo Vecchio. (If the relationship between David’s head and body seems a bit out of proportion, it’s because Michelangelo designed it to be seen “correctly” from far below the rooftop of the church.)
The colossus was placed standing up in a cart and dragged across rollers from Michelangelo’s workshop (behind the Duomo) to the Palazzo Vecchio, where it replaced a work by Donatello. There David stood—naked and outdoors—for 350 years. In the right light, you can see signs of weathering on his shoulders. Also, note the crack in David’s left arm where it was broken off during a 1527 riot near the Palazzo Vecchio. In 1873, to conserve the masterpiece, the statue was finally replaced with a copy (see photo on bottom of here) and moved here. The real David now stands under a wonderful Renaissance-style dome designed just for him.
Circle David and view him from various angles. From the front, he’s confident, but a little less so when you gaze directly into his eyes. Around back, see his sling strap, buns of steel, and Renaissance mullet. Up close, you can see the blue-veined Carrara marble and a few cracks and stains. From the sides, Michelangelo’s challenge becomes clear: to sculpt a figure from a block of marble other sculptors said was too tall and narrow to accommodate a human figure.
Renaissance Florentines could identify with David. Like him, they considered themselves God-blessed underdogs fighting their city-state rivals. In a deeper sense, they were civilized Renaissance people slaying the ugly giant of medieval superstition, pessimism, and oppression.
• Hang around a while. Eavesdrop on tour guides. The Plexiglas shields at the base of the statue went up after an attack by a frustrated artist, who smashed the statue’s feet in 1991.
Lining the hall leading up to David are other statues by Michelangelo—his Prisoners, St. Matthew, and Pietà. Start with the Awakening Prisoner, the statue at the end of the nave (farthest from David). He’s on your left as you face David.
These unfinished figures seem to be fighting to free themselves from the stone. Michelangelo believed the sculptor was a tool of God, not creating but simply revealing the powerful and beautiful figures that God had encased in the marble. Michelangelo’s job was to chip away the excess, to reveal. He needed to be in tune with God’s will, and whenever the spirit came upon him, Michelangelo worked in a frenzy, without sleep, often for days on end.
The Prisoners give us a glimpse of this fitful process, showing the restless energy of someone possessed, struggling against the rock that binds him. Michelangelo himself fought to create the image he saw in his mind’s eye. You can still see the grooves from the chisel, and you can picture Michelangelo hacking away in a cloud of dust. Unlike most sculptors, who built a model and then marked up their block of marble to know where to chip, Michelangelo always worked freehand, starting from the front and working back. These figures emerge from the stone (as his colleague Vasari put it) “as though surfacing from a pool of water.”
Several Italian masters produced iconic sculptures of David—all of them different. Compare and contrast the artists’ styles. How many ways can you slay a giant?
Donatello’s David is young and graceful, casually gloating over the head of Goliath, almost Gothic in its elegance and smooth lines. While he has a similar weight-on-one-leg (contrapposto) stance as Michelangelo’s later version, Donatello’s David seems feminine rather than masculine. (For further description, see here of the Bargello Tour chapter.)
Wearing a military skirt and armed with a small sword, Verrocchio’s David is just a boy. The statue is only four feet tall—dwarfed by Michelangelo’s monumental version. (For more, see here of the Bargello Tour chapter.)
Michelangelo’s David is pure Renaissance: massive, heroic in size, and superhuman in strength and power. The tensed right hand, which grips a stone in readiness to hurl at Goliath, is more powerful than any human hand. It’s symbolic of divine strength. A model of perfection, Michelangelo’s David is far larger and grander than we mere mortals. We know he’ll win. Renaissance Man has arrived.
Flash forward more than a century. In this self-portrait, 25-year-old Bernini is ready to take on the world, slay the pretty-boy Davids of the Renaissance, and invent Baroque. Unlike Michelangelo’s rational, cool, restrained David, Bernini’s is a doer: passionate, engaged, dramatic. While Renaissance David is simple and unadorned—carrying only a sling—Baroque Dave is “cluttered” with a braided sling, a hairy pouch, flowing cloth, and discarded armor. Bernini’s David, with his tousled hair and set mouth, is one of us; the contest is less certain than with the other three Davids.
To sum up: Donatello’s David represents the first inkling of the Renaissance; Verrocchio’s is early Renaissance in miniature; Michelangelo’s is textbook Renaissance; and Bernini’s is the epitome of Baroque.
The so-called Awakening Prisoner (the names are given by scholars, not Michelangelo) seems to be stretching after a long nap, still tangled in the “bedsheets” of uncarved rock. He’s more block than statue.
On the right, the Young Prisoner is more finished. He buries his face in his forearm, while his other arm is chained behind him.
The Prisoners were designed for the never-completed tomb of Pope Julius II (who also commissioned the Sistine Chapel ceiling). Michelangelo may have abandoned them simply because the project itself petered out, or he may have deliberately left them unfinished. Having perhaps satisfied himself that he’d accomplished what he set out to do, and seeing no point in polishing them into their shiny, finished state, he went on to a new project.
Walking up the nave toward David, you’ll pass by Michelangelo’s St. Matthew (1503), on the right. Though not one of the Prisoners series, he is also unfinished, perfectly illustrating Vasari’s “surfacing” description.
The next statue (also on the right), the Bearded Prisoner, is the most finished of the four, with all four limbs, a bushy face, and even a hint of daylight between his arm and body.
Across the nave on the left, the Atlas Prisoner carries the unfinished marble on his stooped shoulders, his head still encased in the block.
As you study the Prisoners, notice Michelangelo’s love and understanding of the human body. His greatest days were spent sketching the muscular, tanned, and sweating bodies of the workers in the Carrara marble quarries. The prisoners’ heads and faces are the least-developed part—they “speak” with their poses. Comparing the restless, claustrophobic Prisoners with the serene and confident David gives an idea of the sheer emotional range in Michelangelo’s work.
In the unfinished Pietà (the threesome closest to David), the figures struggle to hold up the sagging body of Christ. Michelangelo (or, more likely, one of his followers) emphasizes the heaviness of Jesus’ dead body, driving home the point that this divine being suffered a very human death. Christ’s massive arm is almost the size of his bent and broken legs. By stretching his body—if he stood up, he’d be more than seven feet tall—the weight is exaggerated.
• After getting your fill of Michelangelo, consider taking a spin around the rest of the Accademia. Michelangelo’s statues are far and away the highlight here, but the rest of this small museum—housed in a former convent/hospice—has a few bonuses.
Browse the pleasant-but-underwhelming collection of paintings in the hall near David and the adjoining corridor; you’ll be hard-pressed to find even one by a painter whose name you recognize. (You’ll find better art in the Giambologna Room; described next page.)
At the end of the hall to the left of David is a long room crammed with plaster statues and busts. These were the Academy art students’ “final exams”—preparatory models for statues, many of which were later executed in marble. The black dots on the statues are sculptors’ “points,” guiding them on how deep to chisel. The Academy art school has been attached to the museum for centuries, and you may see the next Michelangelo wandering the streets nearby.
At the end of the nave (farthest from David), a bronze bust depicts a craggy, wrinkled Michelangelo, age 89, by Daniele da Volterra. (Daniele, one of Michelangelo’s colleagues and friends, is best known as the one who painted loincloths on the private parts of Michelangelo’s nudes in the Sistine Chapel.) As a teenager, Michelangelo got his nose broken in a fight with a rival artist. Though Michelangelo went on to create great beauty, he was never classically handsome.
• Enter the room near the museum entrance dominated by a large, squirming statue.
This full-size plaster model of Rape of the Sabine Women (1582) guided Giambologna’s assistants in completing the marble version in the Loggia dei Lanzi (on Piazza della Signoria, next to the Palazzo Vecchio, described on here). A Roman warrior tramples a fighter from the Sabine tribe and carries off the man’s wife. Husband and wife exchange one final, anguished glance. Circle the statue and watch it spiral around its axis. Giambologna was clearly influenced (as a plaque with photo points out) by Michelangelo’s groundbreaking Victory in the Palazzo Vecchio (1533-1534, described on here). Michelangelo’s statue of a man triumphing over a fallen enemy introduced both the theme and the spiral-shaped pose that many artists imitated.
Browse the room clockwise (from the entrance) to locate minor paintings by artists you’ll encounter elsewhere in Florence. Fra Bartolomeo’s dreamy portraits hang in the Museum of San Marco (see here). Domenico Ghirlandaio’s paintings of Renaissance Florence are behind the altar of the Church of Santa Maria Novella (see here). Filippino Lippi is known for his frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel and Church of Santa Maria Novella. Francesco Granacci, a childhood friend of Michelangelo, assisted him on the Sistine Ceiling. Benozzo Gozzoli decorated the personal chapel of the Medici in the Medici-Riccardi Palace (see here). And Botticelli’s Birth of Venus hangs in the Uffizi (see here).
• From the Giambologna Room, head down a short hallway leading to a few rooms containing the...
Between 1400 and 1700, Florence was one of Europe’s most sophisticated cities, and the Medici rulers were trendsetters. Musicians like Scarlatti and Handel flocked to the court of Prince Ferdinando (1663-1713). You’ll see late-Renaissance cellos, dulcimers, violins, woodwinds, and harpsichords. (Listen to some on the computer terminals.)
As you enter, look for the two group paintings that include the prince (he’s second from the right in both paintings, with the yellow bowtie) hanging out with his musician friends. The gay prince played a mean harpsichord, and he helped pioneer new variations. In the adjoining room, you’ll see several experimental keyboards, including some by Florence’s keyboard pioneer, Bartolomeo Cristofori. The tall piano on display (from 1739) is considered by some to be the world’s first upright piano.
• Head one more time back up the nave to say goodbye to Dave, then turn left, and left again, to go through the bookstore toward the exit. Before you leave—after the bookshop, but before the exit lobby—you’ll see stairs up to one more exhibit. (I won’t blame you if you skip this collection of altarpieces.) The stairwell is lined with a fine collection of Russian icons. At the top you’ll find...
If you’re a fan of earth’s greatest sculptor, you won’t leave Florence until there’s a check next to each of these:
• Bargello: Several Michelangelo sculptures, including the Bacchus (pictured here; see the Bargello Tour chapter).
• Duomo Museum: Another moving pietà (see here).
• Medici Chapels: The Night and Day statues, plus others done for the Medici tomb, located at the Church of San Lorenzo (see the Medici Chapels Tour chapter).
• Laurentian Medici Library: Michelangelo designed the entrance staircase and more, located at the Church of San Lorenzo (see here).
• Palazzo Vecchio: His Victory statue (see here).
• Uffizi Gallery: A rare Michelangelo painting (see here).
• Casa Buonarroti: Built on property Michelangelo once owned, at Via Ghibellina 70, containing some early works (see here).
• Santa Croce Church: Michelangelo’s tomb (see here).
• Santo Spirito Church: Wooden crucifix thought to be by Michelangelo (see here).
Here you’ll find mostly altarpieces depicting saints and Madonnas, painted during the last gasp of the Middle Ages—the period after the Great Plague wracked Florence, but before Renaissance fever hit in full force. Gaze upon Lorenzo Monaco’s Man of Sorrows (in the central hall, 1404), a green-skinned Christ accompanied by the instruments of his torture. Mentally contrast this somber scene with the confident optimism of Michelangelo’s David, done a century later, in the full bloom of the Florentine Renaissance.
• The tour is finished. From here, it’s a 10-minute walk to the Duomo.