David – Donatello – Bargello Museum, Florence

The young shepherd, naked but for a laurel-crowned hat and boots, rests his foot on the severed head of Goliath, sword in hand, in a languid contrapposto. Cast by Donatello around 1435–1440 in partly gilded bronze, it is the first free-standing nude since Antiquity and stood in the courtyard of the Medici palace.