What material was Michelangelo's David carved from?

Answer

He finished the 5-meter statue in 1504.

Context

David was carved from Carrara marble, the white stone quarried in northern Tuscany for nearly 2,000 years. Michelangelo did not choose the block. According to Visit Tuscany, the sculptor Agostino di Duccio began working it and Antonio Rossellino later abandoned it again, perhaps because of client disputes, inexperience with a figure of that scale, or difficulty with the stone. In 1501 the roughly shaped block passed to Michelangelo, then 25, and he finished within about three years.

The statue was meant for the Florence Cathedral, but a committee of artists and citizens placed it in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, where the republic treated it as a political symbol. It arrived in the Piazza della Signoria on 18 May 1504 after a move that took 40 men four days. Older guidebooks give its height as about 4.18 metres including the base, while measurements made in 2000 put it at 5.17 metres, so the commonly quoted 5 metres is approximate.

During a revolt against the Medici in 1527, objects thrown from the Palazzo Vecchio broke the left arm into three pieces, and Giorgio Vasari gathered the fragments for later repair. Concern for the marble led to the decision in 1872 to move the original to the Accademia Gallery.

Michelangelo's long experience with Carrara and Pietrasanta quarries, noted by the Metropolitan Museum, shows how much he cared about stone selection, though for David he inherited a block that others had already begun to carve.