Michelangelo's statue of David is about to celebrate his 500th birthday.'I knew he was old but I wasn't aware he was turning 500,' said Pat Fisico, a Canadian on holiday in Florence. 'I don't think he looks a day over 22...I hope he will be around for another 5,000 years.'

So do Florentine officials who are preparing to fete the statue. On this day 500 years ago the icon of Renaissance male beauty was unveiled for the people of Florence, and today his modern-day cocitizens are kicking off a year of events to celebrate David in style. There will be concerts, fireworks, symposiums and exhibitions. There is, of course, an official David 500 T-shirt.

'Florence is seen as a Disneyland of the Renaissance,' said Antonio Paolucci, superintendent of city museums. 'We want David's 500th birthday to spark debate, to be controversial, to challenge people about what art is today, not just what it was 500 years ago,' he said on September 6 at a conference presenting the birthday events at the Academia museum where David has been displayed since 1873.

To chisel home the connection between old art and new art, the wing that houses David will be cleared of Renaissance paintings. They will be replaced by contemporary works inspired by the statue of the muscular shepherd boy who slew Goliath. Artists including George Baselitz, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis and Robert Morris will show their works in the shadow of the statue Florentines call Il Gigante (the giant). They include a minimalist, a photographer and, what might seem a horror to some, an artist who works in plastic.

'We have to bring to Florence the same calibre of artists that Michelangelo was in his day,' said Franca Falletti, the Academia's director. 'Otherwise it remains a mummified city.'

A 26-year old Michelangelo sculpted David, who is more than 4 metres high, between 1502 and 1504 from a single piece of poor quality marble other sculptors had rejected. David, who wears only his slingshot, has seen the best and the worst of times in Italy's premier Renaissance city.

In 1527, he lost the lower half of his left arm in a riot. In 1810, the statue was covered with a protective wax and in 1843 an attempt to remove the wax with hydrochloric acid also stripped away some of the original patina. In 1991, a crazed Italian artist smashed one of his toes with a hammer.