School Principal, Forced to Resign After Students Learn About Michelangelo’s “David,” Visits the Renaissance Statue in Florence

In March, a Flori­da school prin­ci­pal lost her job when 6th graders encoun­tered Michelangelo’s “David” dur­ing an art his­to­ry lesson–even though the school osten­si­bly spe­cial­izes in offer­ing stu­dents “a con­tent-rich clas­si­cal edu­ca­tion in the lib­er­al arts and sci­ences.” Par­ents appar­ent­ly found the Renais­sance sculp­ture, um, “porno­graph­ic.”

Fast for­ward two months, and the for­mer prin­ci­pal Hope Car­rasquil­la has now trav­eled to Flo­rence and vis­it­ed Michelangelo’s “David” in per­son. This came at the invi­ta­tion of the may­or of Flo­rence, Dario Nardel­la, and the direc­tor of the Gal­le­ria dell’Accademia, Cecilie Holl­berg. Above you can see Holl­berg on the left, and Car­rasquil­la on the right.

On Insta­gram, Car­rasquil­la com­ment­ed:

I’m very impressed. The thing that strikes me the most, and that I did­n’t know, is that this whole gallery was built for him [Michelangelo’s “David”]. I think it’s beau­ti­ful, it looks like a church. And to me, that just rep­re­sents real­ly the puri­ty of this fig­ure and you see his human­i­ty.  There is noth­ing wrong with the human body. Michelan­ge­lo did noth­ing wrong. He could only sculpt it like this. It could­n’t be oth­er­wise. He’s won­der­ful and I’m real­ly hap­py to be here.

In her own state­ment, Holl­berg said:

I am delight­ed to wel­come her and show her the mag­nif­i­cence of our muse­um, as well as per­son­al­ly intro­duce her to David, a sculp­ture that I reit­er­ate has noth­ing to do with pornog­ra­phy. It is a mas­ter­piece rep­re­sent­ing a reli­gious sym­bol of puri­ty and inno­cence, the tri­umph of good over evil. His nudi­ty is an out­ward man­i­fes­ta­tion of Renais­sance thought, which con­sid­ered man the cen­tre of the uni­verse. Peo­ple from all over the world, includ­ing many Amer­i­cans, make the pil­grim­age to admire him every year. Cur­rent­ly, more than 50% of vis­i­tors are from the Unit­ed States. I am cer­tain that Ms. Car­rasquil­la will receive the wel­come and sol­i­dar­i­ty she deserves here in Flo­rence.

Flori­da may be can­cel­ing clas­si­cal art and thought. Flo­rence is decid­ed­ly not.

Relat­ed Con­tent 

How Michelangelo’s David Still Draws Admi­ra­tion and Con­tro­ver­sy Today

Michelangelo’s Illus­trat­ed Gro­cery List

Take a 3D Vir­tu­al Tour of the Sis­tine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca and Oth­er Art-Adorned Vat­i­can Spaces

Leonar­do da Vinci’s Hand­writ­ten Resume (1482)