Renaissance master Donatello's famous bronze statue of David has temporarily left its home at Florence's Bargello museum to undergo a health check.
The masterpiece, considered the first major work of Renaissance sculpture, will be subject to X-rays and other diagnostic tests ahead of a major restoration that is scheduled to start next summer.
This preliminary research will not take long and the statue will be back at the Bargello soon.
"The statue will definitely be on show again by the Christmas holidays," said Tuscany's Archaeology Superintendent Fulvia Lo Schiavo, who is the head of the department running the tests.
Most experts believe Donatello (1386-1466) carved the sensuous work in the 1440s.
It depicts David standing with one foot on Goliath's severed head.
Apart from a hat and a pair of boots, David is naked.
At the time of its creation, it was probably the first free-standing bronze nude since ancient times and it caused a huge sensation.
The almost feminine physique contrasts with Michelangelo's powerful, masculine depiction of the biblical figure, sculpted between 1500 and 1504.
It is also very different from Donatello's earlier marble version - created around 1412 - in which David is clothed.
The bronze David will stay on display at the Bargello during the upcoming restoration, which should be finished by autumn of 2008.
Donatello, whose full name was Donato di Niccolo' di Betto Bardi, was the son of a Florentine woolcomber.
As a teenager, he worked in the studio of noted sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti.
Later, he travelled to Rome with the great architect Filippo Brunelleschi to study the monuments of antiquity.
Donatello's dramatic departure from stylised Gothic art is credited with kick-starting the Renaissance.
The Florentine sculptor even anticipated the use of perspective that is often thought a painterly invention - as can be seen in his early bas relief of St George and the Dragon on Florence's Orsanmichele church.
Other major Donatello works include a grim prophet called Habbakuk - or popularly, Zuccone (big head) - on Florence's Duomo and an equestrian warlord in Padua called the Gattamelata.
