During my ERASMUS period in Italy, I was able to see the Galleria dell'Accad
"Michelangelo's David arrived in 1873, moved here from the Piazza della Signoria in order to better conserve it. A copy of the statue still stands in Piazza della Signoria where it formerly was displayed. Despite the familiarity of the statue's image, the sheer size of the marble statue comes as a surprise. Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo in 1501, the work was deliberately designed to symbolize the virtues of Republican Florence and freedom from foreign and papal domination. Recently, it has come to symbolize the ultimate symbol of the artistic and intellectual ambitions of the Renaissance.
The 16-foot high block of marble was transformed in 3 years into the work of art that was to establish, along with the Pietà displayed at the Vatican, Michelangelo's reputation as the foremost sculptor of his day.David was always intended as an outdoor sculpture which explains some of the extraordinary physical distortions evident in the statue, such as the overly large hands and head. Even the eyes are made to be looked at from below; when examined from statue eye level, in fact, the two eyes were found to be looking in different directions." In: Visit Florence