Donatello created the bronze David in Florence. Usually dated to the 1440s, the statue portrays the biblical hero standing over the severed head of Goliath and is now held in Florence’s Museo Nazionale del Bargello.
The sculpture was made for a secular Medici setting rather than a church. Its youthful, nude figure—wearing only a hat and boots—was remarkably daring for its time and is widely regarded as the first freestanding nude male statue in European art since antiquity. It was also an important early example of a freestanding bronze sculpture.
The statue is sometimes confused with Michelangelo’s later marble David, created around a century afterward. Donatello’s David is smaller and more enigmatic, emphasizing divine assistance and youthful intelligence over physical strength. Its exact commission date remains debated, with scholarly proposals ranging from the 1420s to the 1460s, but Donatello’s authorship is secure.