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Donatello’s David was innovative in that it was the first freestanding life-size bronze nude to have been created since antiquity. Given the fact that David was never said to be nude in the Bible, why did Donatello portray him this way? What ancient sculptures might have influenced his pose, age, hairstyle, and androgyny and why did Donatello choose these images as the model for his biblical hero (see my PowerPoint)? Consider the sensuousness of this statue in context to its probable original location in the courtyard of the Medici Palace, which was a private, rather than a public, space.
Modern scholars have come to drastically different conclusions in their interpretations of Donatello’s David. Some believe Donatello’s David has homosexual overtones, while others (e.g., Pope-Hennessey) vociferously disagree with that point of view, despite the figure’s androgynous appearance. Which of these two points of view do you agree with? Bear in mind the contemporary climate in Florence where, then as now, attitudes towards effeminate and/or homosexual men were complex: homosexuality was tolerated, although sometimes prosecuted. In order to better grasp Renaissance society’s views on this homosexuality, consider the stories told about Donatello’s own pederastic predilections (mentioned in Janson’s The Sculpture of Donatello listed below); contemporary literary works such as Beccadelli’s The Hermaphrodite, which embraced pederasty; and legal actions that were taken against sodomy such as that experienced by Leonardo (discussed by Crompton in Homosexuality and Civilization).
