The Third David

Walking Tours of Florence

Copy of Michelangelo's David by Luigi Arrighetti

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On July 30th, 1873, Michelangelo's statue of David, which had stood outside the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio for almost four hundred years, began its short journey to the Galleria dell' Accademia, which it reached on August 8th. The statue was suspended in a wooden crate and transported to its new home on temporary trolley rails. 

Almost thirty years later, in 1900, the Circolo degli Artisti Fiorentini proposed that a full-scale marble copy of Michelangelo's David should fill the void outside the Palazzo Vecchio. A competition was duly held, which was won by Luigi Arrighetti (1858-1938), a sculptor from Sesto Fiorentino. 

Arrighetti, with the help of a small team of assistants, laboured away on the copy and, in 1910, after an absence of thirty-seven years, David returned to its position outside the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio, where it remains to this day. 

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Moving Michelangelo's statue of David

Entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio without Michelangelo's statue of David