In 1499 Michelangelo returned to Florence. The priest Savonarola had made so many people angry that he had been put to death in 1498. Life in Florence started to return to normal. Many years earlier the Guild of Woolworkers had commissioned some artists to make statues of the heroes of the city. A sculptor called Agostino di Duccio had started carving a huge statue of David, the hero of the Bible story of David and Goliath. For 40 years the Guild of Woolworkers owned the huge block of marble, with the statue hardly begun. In 1501 they commissioned the young Michelangelo to carve it. It took him three years to complete.