The giant left lying

The marble block that became the David lay unused behind the cathedral for forty years. Two sculptors had started on it and stopped, it was narrow and damaged, and in the records of the cathedral workshop it was known simply as the Giant.

In 1501 it was handed to Michelangelo, then twenty-six. Three years later a figure stood more than five metres tall, caught in the moment just before the throw, the sling over his shoulder, the neck tensed and one hand unnaturally large so that it reads correctly from below. A committee that included Botticelli and Leonardo was allowed to choose the spot, and the statue went to the entrance of the town hall, a warning to anyone who threatened the republic.

The same hall holds the Prisoners, meant for a papal tomb that was never finished. They sit half inside the raw marble, and whether he left them that way on purpose or simply ran out of time remains unsettled. Anyone who sees them understands what he meant when he said the figure was already in the stone and he only removed what was in excess.

You need a ticket for the museum, and booking ahead here saves you the longest queue in the city.

Walk to the end of Via dei Pucci and keep left, toward the square by the church with the bare brick facade.