Master's marble not quite up to scratch

August 30, 2005
Humble origins ... the source of David's marble has been found.

Photo: AP

New research gives a valuable insight into David's origins, writes Barbara McMahon.

Scientists have identified the precise origin of the marble block used for Michelangelo's David, and say the discovery will be useful for helping to preserve one of the world's greatest sculptures.

Until now, art historians knew only that the large block came from the Carrara quarries in Tuscany, which still produce many types and qualities of marble.

Analysts have used three tiny samples, retrieved from the second toe of the left foot of David when the figure was damaged in an act of vandalism in 1991, to track down the marble's origin. Not only were they able to determine the exact spot of excavation - the Fantiscritti quarries in Miseglia, the central of three small valleys in Carrara - they also found that Michelangelo's marble is of mediocre quality, filled with microscopic holes, and likely to degrade faster than many other marbles.

"In the field of conservation work, it is becoming more important to have detailed knowledge about the materials and techniques used in works of art," said Donato Attanasio, head of the research team at the Istituto di Struttura della Materia in Rome. "It can help greatly in restoration or conservation ... and, in this sense, Carrara marble was considered too vague a specification."

Michelangelo worked on his masterpiece between 1501 and 1504, but the five-metre block of marble was quarried 40 years earlier, for Agostino di Duccio, who had planned to make a giant figure of a prophet for Florence's cathedral. The project was abandoned, probably because Di Duccio had no experience of large statuary, and the marble lay unused for 10 years.

Another sculptor, Antonio Rossellino, began working with the marble but he, too, abandoned it. In 1501, when Michelangelo stepped in, he promised to carve a statue from the block without cutting it down or adding other marble.

The analysis of the marble was carried out for the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence, where the statue is displayed. The full results will be published in Britain next month in Elsevier's Journal of Archaeological Science.

The fragments were subjected to a battery of tests to determine the marble's composition and then compared with samples from different parts of Carrara. Eventually, the search was narrowed to the Fantiscritti site.

Dr Attanasio said the research also ruled out a theory the marble might have come from Seravezza, in the Apuan Alps, where Michelangelo worked for some years.

"By analysing the samples we were able to define once and for all where it came from," he said. "We were also able to confirm that the marble is actually rather poor quality. It probably means that Michelangelo took it because it was lying around unused and it was free."

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