David’s Penis - Turning Tuscan: A Step-by-Step Guide to Going Native - page 124

statues to fill various empty niches on their cathedral, its bell-tower, and the nearby church
of Orsanmichele. Among the earliest commissions was a statue of David the shepherd boy
to be placed in a niche on the façade of the church. This work has survived the centuries,
and it is Donatello's earliest known work.
Donatello's figure of David stood astride the severed head of Goliath with a stance and ex-
pression that conveyed courage, resolution, and cool self-confidence. Someone who was
no fool saw that this statue had a potent political message that would be lost up on a church
façade and, so, had it moved right in front of City Hall. Thus was born the first David-
as-symbol-of-the-city-of-Florence. As David had fearlessly challenged and overcome the
might of Goliath, so had Florence withstood the aggressive onslaught of the Milanese giant
from the north. The analogy was too good to be ignored for long.
There's a final detail here that may seem trivial but actually takes us right to the heart of the
matter. The statue of David originally had a gold strap that ran from his right hand down
and across to the pouch resting on Goliath's head where David's backup stone was ready in
case the first one had missed. On the gold band was inscribed (in Fredrick Hartt's transla-
tion): “To those who strive bravely for their fatherland the gods will lend aid even against
the most fearful foes."
Now here was a golden opportunity to coin the phrase, “God helps those who help them-
selves,” almost three hundred years before Ben Franklin. Yet, rather than mentioning
“God” what was chosen instead for David's gold band was a pagan reference to assistance
from “the gods.” Here's why:
At the dawn of the 15 th century the cultural elite in Florence was actively engaged in re-
covering the riches of the Greco-Roman world that had been forgotten, lost and literally
buried. After nearly a thousand years of dominance, Christian society no longer had a pa-
gan opponent to be vanquished, disdained and despised. What happened next is similar to
what took place some time after the Indian wars were decisively won in the New World:
the younger generation took a second look and recognized that the “heathen savages” were
Native Americans and had spiritual traditions and ways of living that were worthy of their
interest and respect.
In Florence bright young men like Donatello and Brunelleschi traveled to Rome to marvel
at the sophistication of the surviving architecture and the astonishing skill of the classical
sculptors. Their literary counterparts meanwhile were busy recovering, translating and or-
ganizing the writings of the great Greek and Roman poets and philosophers. The recovery
of the classical past became a cultural enterprise of the foremost importance.