Founded in 1784 by Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo for the use of art students at the Accademia delle Belle Arti, the Galleria dell'Accademia contains sculptures by Michelangelo as well as a collection of minor paintings of the Florentine school dating from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries.
Among the sculptures by Michelangelo are DAVID and the four PRISONERS. The latter were begun for the ill-fated tomb of Julius II in Rome, but were never completed.
Michelangelo's DAVID originally stood in front of the Palazzo Vecchio at the beginning of the sixteenth century, as the symbolic guardian of the liberty of the Florentine Republic. In 1873 it was moved to the Galleria and was replaced by the copy which now stands in its original location.

Next to the PRISONERS stands the unfinished statue of SAINT MATTHEW -- one of the most poetic expressions of Michelangelo's genius -- and the PALESTRINA PIETA`, carved out of a large fragment of an ancient Roman cornice.

via Ricasoli 60. Phone 23885
Open: 9-19. Closed Mondays..