In 2010, a dispute over the ownership of Michelangelo's David arose when, based on a legal review of historical documents, the Italian Culture Ministry claimed ownership of the statue in opposition to the city of Florence, where it had always been located. Florence disputed the state claim.

As a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches.

The Genius of Victory was left in the artist's studio after his final departure from Florence in 1534 and became the property of his nephew, Leonardo Buonarroti.

In the mid 1800s, small cracks were noticed on the left leg of Michelangelo's David which can possibly be attributed to an uneven sinking of the ground under the massive statue.

God is depicted six times in the ceiling frescoes. Christ does not feature as an adult (the Christ Child appears among the figures under God's cloak in the famous image of God Creating Adam), because, apart from images of the sibyls, the ceiling is concerned only with the Old Testament.

A masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created between 1501 and 1504, Michelangelo's David is a 5.17 meters (17.0 ft) tall.

Michelangelo did not marry and had no children but was rumored to have love affairs with Tommaso dei Cavalieri and the poet Vittoria Colonna.

Made of solid marble, Michelangelo's David weighs 5,660 kg or 12,478.12 lbs!

In the painting, Charon, the gatekeeper of the river Styx, takes the condemned souls to Hell's mouth.

After an unemployed geologist from Hungary won infamy on Pentecost Sunday of 1972 by leaping over the railings at St. Peter's Basilica to attack the Pietà with a hammer, master craftsmen spent 10 months picking through the rubble and piecing it back together.