Stone Giant

35 Pages·2014·9.534 MB·English

by  Jane Sutcliffe,John Shelley

Jane Sutcliffe Illustrated by John Shelley
S T O N E G I A N T
MICHELANGELO’S DAVI D AND HOW HE CAM E TO BE

Jane Sutcliffe
Illustrated by John Shelley

T
here was a giant in the city of Florence.
It had been there for nearly forty years.
And no one knew what to do about it.
The giant was an enormous block of stone—
marble, to be exact. It stood three times as tall
as any man in the city. It was the color of
cream. And it was a troublemaker.
It hadn’t started out that way. In the beginning
the giant—as everyone called it—had been part of
a glorious plan for the city. City fathers had hoped
to have the stone made into a statue. It was to be a
statue of David, the shepherd boy from the Bible
who killed the giant warrior, Goliath.
David and Florence were a lot alike. At the time
the city was part of a small, proud republic. It
often had to fight against bigger, more powerful
kingdoms. The statue would remind people that
God would protect them, just as he had protected
young David.

That was the idea, anyway. But things
didn’t turn out as planned. First one
artist then another started cutting into
the giant. One chopped out a space
between David’s legs. Another—or
maybe the same one—left a bump of
stone that looked like a knot for a cloak.
But they didn’t get very far before they
quit, or died.
So for years the giant lay in the work
yard of the city’s cathedral, discarded,
with a hole in it, getting rained on.
City officials refused to give up on
their idea. They offered the giant
to other artists. But even the great
Leonardo da Vinci took a look at what
was left and said, “No, grazie.” No,
thank you.
One artist already knew about the giant.
Twenty-six-year-old Michelangelo Buonarroti
had grown up in Florence. The giant had been
around since before he was born. But for some
years the artist had been busy working in
Rome. And such work! The sculptures he had
created there had stunned people with their
detail and beauty.