Text: Pages 164 and 165

Since Eve seduced Adam and was responsible for lust and original sin, the Church viewed any bodily pleasure outside of marriage as sinful. The statue David by Michelangelo (1475–1564) is one of the greatest symbols of the spirit of the Renaissance and the reawakened appreciation for the beauty of the human body. The statue also symbolized boundless human potential; defense of civil liberties against the Goliath of the Church and political order; and the importance of the arts, particularly Greek and Roman mythology. All were symbolic of the power of the individual to create their own personal existence outside the confines of the Catholic Church