In 1501, a 26-year-old Michelangelo signed on to salvage a 17-foot block of Carrara marble that had sat abandoned in a Florence cathedral courtyard for roughly 25 years. Two sculptors, Agostino di Duccio and Antonio Rossellino, had already tried and quit, and the stone was infamously nicknamed the Giant. For six florins a month and a two-year deadline, he set out to prove he alone could free the figure he believed was already inside.

This episode follows the creation of the David from the first chisel strike through its politically charged installation at the doors of the Palazzo della Signoria, then traces five centuries of damage and survival, from a riot-shattered arm to an acid wash, a hammer attack, and the slow forward tilt that conservators monitor today.

• Why Michelangelo forged his own tools and worked entirely with point ...