Accademia Museum or The Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze is a stunning meuseum. It is best known as the home of Michelangelo's sculpture David. It also has other sculptures by Michelangelo and a large collection of paintings by Florentine artists , mostly from 1300–1600. It is smaller and more specialized than the Uffizi, the main art museum in Florence. It adjoins the Accademia di Belle Arti or academy of fine arts of Florence, but despite the name has no other connection with it.
The main halls at the Accademia contains works by great Italian artists such as Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pontormo, Andrea del Sarto, Allessando Allori and Orcagna, to name just a few of the painters. Many of the works of art that were commissioned by and were part of the collection of the Medici family were donated to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany by the last of the Medici so that these magnificent works could be enjoyed by everyone.
The most recent section, the Museum of Musical Instruments, displays old, one-of-a-kind masterpieces by Stradivari and Bartolomeo Cristofori, inventor of the piano, also commissioned by the Medici.
The most popular piece in the Accademia Meuseum is the statue of David. This sculpture was created between 1501 and 1504. It is a 14.0 ft marble statue depicting the biblical figure David. The proportions of some details are atypical of Michelangelo’s work. The figure has an unusually large head and imposing right hand. These enlargements may be due to the fact that the statue was originally intended to be placed on the cathedral roof line, so important parts of the sculpture had to be necessarily accentuated in order to be visible from below.
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