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How did Donatello’s marble David become a symbol of Florence?
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Donatello
David, bronze sculpture by Donatello, early 15th century; in the Bargello Museum, Florence.
Donatello’s marble David became a symbol of Florence because it was installed in the Palazzo Vecchio—the city’s town hall—in 1416, where it stood for a long period as a civic-patriotic symbol of the republic.1
While Michelangelo’s later, larger David eventually eclipsed it in fame, Donatello’s work served the same purpose as a powerful emblem of Florentine identity. It is important to note that the marble David was Donatello's earliest work of certain knowledge, reflecting the influence of his teacher Lorenzo Ghiberti and the International Gothic style, rather than the fully developed classical naturalism seen in his later masterpieces.21