ABSTRACT
The turn of the sixteenth century in Italy evolved into the period known as the High Renaissance. It was a time of greatness in the visual arts, concentrated in a few major figures, each of whom was in one way or another engaged with the Classical revival. With the expulsion of the Medici from Florence after Lorenzo's death, Michelangelo departed for Venice and Bologna. The David's relaxed contrapposto stance, like that of Donatello's figure, is derived from Classical statuary, but the proportions are closer to Hellenistic style. In the Middle Ages, the symbol of Florence had been Hercules, whose strength and virtue allied him with the biblical David, Both figures were paired typologically in the fifteenth century as the pagan and Jewish prototypes of the Christian Virtue of Fortitude. As regards the relationship of the body's structures to its workings, Leonardo could reason from animals to humans with a fair degree of accuracy.
