Michelangelo
Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1499. The republic was changing after the fall of its leader, anti-Renaissance priest Girolamo Savonarola, who was executed in 1498, and the rise of the "gonfaloniere" Piero Soderini. Michelangelo was asked by the consuls of the Guild of Wool to complete an unfinished project begun 40 years earlier by Agostino di Duccio: a colossal statue of Carrara marble portraying David as a symbol of Florentine freedom to be placed on the gable of Florence Cathedral. Michelangelo responded by completing his most famous work, the statue of David, in 1504. The masterwork definitively established his prominence as a sculptor of extraordinary technical skill and strength of symbolic imagination. A team of consultants, including Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci, was called together to decide upon its placement, ultimately the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. It now stands in the Academia while a replica occupies its place in the square.
Apollo (Michelangelo)
When Cosimo came into possession of the collection containing the most important statues of Michelangelo (the Bacchus or the Genius of Victory), the "Apollo-David" was placed in the Boboli Gardens, where it decorated a long niche of its amphitheater. In 1824 the statue was transported to the Uffizi, and later placed into the collection at the Bargello. Now it is in the National Gallery of Art Museum, part of the Renaissance wing complete with European paintings and sculptures.