The study of Michelangelo’s David from an accountability perspective: prodromes of dialogic accounting in the early Florentine Renaissance

This article aims to contribute to the accounting history literature by investigating the realization and the placement of Michelangelo’s David from an accountability perspective. More specifically, the study attempts to answer the exploratory research question of whether and how prodromes of dialogic accounting were concretely adopted by a quasi-public institution – the Opera of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence – during the period of the David’s realization (1501-1504). Through the analysis of primary and secondary sources, this study aims to shed light on a complex, rare and effective early Renaissance accountability system that was based on consensus building and dialogic accounting, a form of critical accounting that allows interested constituencies with divergent sociopolitical perspectives to express different views on what needs to be accounted for, how these phenomena are accounted for, and on whose terms. Our contribution to the accounting history literature is twofold. First, our study adds an early Renaissance analysis to the existing literature on the deliberative, Habermas-inspired approach to dialogic accounting. Second, the particular historical period and context of this study and its focus on an original institution that operated as a quasi-public, hybrid organization strictly linked with the Republic of Florence constitute a new strand of research for accounting historians.