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History of Medicine
Abstract
Michelangelo's marble sculpture of David is one of the most admired works of art in the world. It is the most iconic symbol of the Florentine Renaissance, and a representation of the idealized human form in its perfection and proportion. The statue was examined in 2004 by two anatomists who observed the apparent absence of a single muscle. Our re-examination of the statue, from our perspective as clinical geneticists, shows unexpected and hitherto unpublished details of variations and disproportions within the overall context of exceptional harmony and beauty. This apparent contradiction raises the question as to what is considered to be morphologically "normal" and what "is not".
Keywords
Michelangelo's David, morphology, minor anomalies, reverse phenotyping, NGS.
Introduction
In Florence in 1501, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) began shaping the statue of David from a block of marble initially discarded by the workers of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral of Florence. The block of marble was given, in 1463, to Agostino di Duccio for the realization of a colossal statue, perhaps a prophet or David himself (DeTolnay, 1933). The statue was meant to be placed on one of the buttresses of tlie Florentine Cathedral (the Duomo), as from a document of the Opera dating august 18, 1464 (Poggi, 1909). Since Agostino did not complete the work, the marble was given to Antonio Rossellino on may 6, 1476, but it was abandoned in the courtyard of the Opera till August 16, 1501, when it was taken by Michelangelo, and, by that time, the idea of placing it on the top of the cathedral had almost been given up (Falletti, 2002; Goldscheider, 2004; Paolucci, 2004; Acidini Luchinat, 2010). After having tested its consistency, Michelangelo, on October 14, ordered to built tlie "cage" of wooden board to work inside. On January 25, 1504, the statue was almost done, but tlie final decision on its placement had not yet been taken. Thus, a committee, including artists such as Andrea della Robbia, Cosimo Rosselli, Francesco Granacci, Piero di Cosimo, Davide Ghirlandaio, Simone del Pollaiolo, Filippino Lippi, Sandro Botticelli, Antonio e Giuliano da Sangallo, Andrea Sansovino, Pietro Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, was appointed to reach a decision (Goldscheider, 2004). The Flerald of the Signoria proposed...