If you only see one statue on your trip to Italy, Michelangelo’s David is the one to see. Hailed as an instant classic from the day it was unveiled in 1504 (“….to tell the truth, this work eclipsed all other statues both modern and ancient,” wrote the great art historian Giorgio Vasari) its prestige has only grown in the ensuing 500 years.

It’s a work both strikingly familiar yet overwhelmingly larger than life, a statue you have seen 1,000 times before, yet it still reveals new secrets every time you see it. No postcard or picture can do it justice.