Remember how David slews Goliath as a young man in the Old Testament? Of course you do, and you know that David was a good Jew. So what? Well, if David was a good Hebrew man, he would have been circumcised at birth according to Jewish custom. 
Well look closely at Michelangelo's David and you will immediately note that he is uncircumcised! Of course, old Michelangelo lived in Florence, Italy, and there were not too many Jewish men to use as models. As a matter of fact, I think that David has a very Roman looking face as well. And since Michelangelo was gay, this was probably his type; it may even be an excellent portrayal of his lover. What do you think? But as a commissioned work of art, it had to show David with the sling over his shoulder in position to commit Goliath's demise.Michelangelo left us many wonderful sculptures -- especially of men with uncircumcised penises. The Pieta's adult dead Jesus has a cloth covering his genitals, but the Mother and Child shows the toddler Jesus naked and probably uncircumcised, but the pictures I downloaded do not have enough resolution to be sure. Again I think Michelangelo chose to ignore the Jewish rite of circumcision. What do you think?
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3 comments:
this has come up before in some discussions and there are two possible explanations - the first is that this statue did not start out to be of David - it was originally to be representative of a Roman youth - the second is that the David actually is circumcised, but with the technique more appropriate to David's actual time where the circumcision was much less severe and only partially removed the foreskin - the later and more severe version was a result of Jews pulling the remaining foreskin over the glans so they could "pass" in Roman society and in the games - the jewish elders did not appreciate this and began the more elaborate ritual which cut off more skin as well as peeling back the skin covering the glans to behing the glans - hope this sheds a little light on the subject
Jon the anonymous
Michelangelo probably went to his grave having never seen a circumcised penis. Also, the male nude in the European fine art tradition is always depicted intact. I found it very curious that the Christ child was always depicted intact in Renaissance art.
It is true that before 200 BC or so, Jewish circumcision cut off only the overhang. Some parents request this nowadays, and some doctors are willing to comply. The result is that one looks partly covered all of the time. Rabbis began to require that a properly circumcised man had an exposed corona, only after young Jewish men began to do things in the spirit of present-day "foreskin restoration."
The routine circumcision that came into fashion in the English speaking countries after 1880 chose to imitate Jewish practice. Since 1980, some doctors cut less off.
I agree somewhat with both of the comments above. Michelangelo probably did not ever see a circumcised penis, but also there is the likely hypothesis that the more ancient rituals of circumcision were less severe than today. Only a small part of the foreskin was removed. Even that is barbaric, but it would not have been as noticeable to others.
Although, as you read on my post about the Ancient Olympics (http://cocksandassesonly.blogspot.com/2010/05/ancient-olympics-history-lesson.html), there was clearly a distinction between Jews and Greeks in the Games as circumcised men were not allowed to compete, which may point to a problem with the idea that only a small part of the foreskin was removed. Some Jews did try to reverse their circumcisions to fit into Greek culture.
Most likely though, it is because his model was uncircumcised that the statue of David is as well. Renaissance aesthetics would have been more important than historical accuracy.
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