5.56 t12,300 lb
Michelangelo’s David weighs 5,560 kg (12,258 lb), according to the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, where it stands. That figure covers the 5.17 m (17 ft) marble statue with its carved base. Many other sources quote a slightly higher 5,660 kg (12,478 lb), but none of them names a study behind it.
| Also widely quotedCommon in articles, no named study or source | 5.66 t12,500 lb |
|---|---|
| Figure in reports on the 2014 crack studyQuoted by ANSA | 5.57 t12,300 lb |
| Galleria dell’Accademia (official)The museum’s own figure, statue with its carved base | 5.56 t12,300 lb |
The most authoritative number is the one from the museum that holds the statue. The Galleria dell’Accademia’s page for the David says that the sculpture, with its carved base, is 517 cm high and weighs 5,560 kilos. It does not say how that was worked out, and no record of the statue being put on a scale has been published.
Other published figures land close by: 5,572 kg in the 2014 news reports about the cracks in its legs, and 5,660 kg in many articles, usually with no source given. The gap is only 100 kg, under 2%, and every one of them rounds to about 5.6 tonnes, or a little over 6 US short tons.
As a check: marble weighs roughly 2,700 kg per cubic metre, so 5,560 ÷ 2,700 is about 2.1 cubic metres of stone. That is a lot less than the original block, since much of it was cut away. A few sources go higher. Wikipedia, citing a 2017 book chapter, gives about 8.5 tons, and one travel article says the usual estimate could be up to 2 tons too low, but neither explains where the extra weight would come from.
The statue comes from a single block of Carrara marble, cut at the old Fantiscritti quarry. It was not the finest statuary grade but a more ordinary white marble, and the block was tall and narrow, nine braccia (about 5.25 m) long. Agostino di Duccio started roughing it out in 1464 and stopped in 1466. Antonio Rossellino was hired to continue in 1476, but his contract was cancelled, and the block lay in the cathedral workshop for about 25 years.
The cathedral works gave it to Michelangelo on 16 August 1501 for a fee of 400 ducats. He started carving on 13 September 1501 and finished in 1504. The finished figure, with its base, is 517 cm tall and about 199 cm wide.
The David was meant for the roofline of Florence Cathedral, but at this weight lifting it up there was out of the question. A committee that included Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli chose a spot outside the Palazzo Vecchio instead. Moving it about half a mile from the workshop took four days: the statue hung in a wooden frame and was rolled along on fourteen greased logs by more than 40 men. It was unveiled on 8 September 1504.
It stood outdoors for 369 years. In 1873 it was moved again, this time to the Galleria dell’Accademia, a trip that ran from 30 July to 10 August. A marble copy has stood in its old place on the Piazza della Signoria since 1910.
All that weight rests on two slender ankles and the carved tree stump behind the right leg. Fine cracks in the legs were first noticed in the mid-1800s, and they are clearest in the left ankle and the stump. In 1847 the statue was also loaded with the pieces of a plaster mould for a full-size cast: more than 1,500 segments, some weighing as much as 680 kg (1,499 lb).
In a study published in 2014, researchers from Italy’s National Research Council (CNR) and the University of Florence spun 10 cm gypsum replicas in a centrifuge to copy the stress of the real statue’s weight. Standing upright, the replicas broke in the lower legs; tilted forward, they broke higher up and more easily. The researchers concluded that a long, slight forward lean of about 5 degrees, probably from the ground settling unevenly after the 1844 flood, best explains the damage. A 2017 radar study found that crowds of visitors raise the statue’s tiny vibrations by about 60%, though the movement is still under a thousandth of a millimetre.
About 12,258 lb, based on the Galleria dell’Accademia’s official figure of 5,560 kg. The other figure often quoted, 5,660 kg, works out to 12,478 lb; either way it is a little over 6 US short tons.
The David is 5.17 m (17 ft) tall, measured with its carved marble base. The tall pedestal it stands on in the Accademia is not included.
No. The original was moved indoors to the Galleria dell’Accademia in 1873, and the statue in the square is a marble copy installed in 1910.
The ankles carry about 5.6 tonnes of marble, and a 2014 study found that a slight forward lean of around 5 degrees, which built up while the statue stood outdoors, concentrated stress in the lower legs. The cracks were first noticed in the 19th century and are monitored closely today.
A single block of white Carrara marble from the Fantiscritti quarry. It was an ordinary grade rather than the finest statuary marble, and two sculptors had already started on the block before Michelangelo got it.
Last checked October 2, 2026.
