shown inside the whale, for example, the viewer has immediate access to the artist's meaning. But even in these cases the stories or persons shown can acquire added meanings from their place in an iconographical scheme. Thus Jonah was sometimes pictured on tombs and the reference to Christ's entombment becomes, more specifically, a reference to His resurrection and the promised resurrection of human beings at the last judgment (Dillenberger 31). In later art the meanings of Old Testament subjects were often expanded to fit secular needs and the choice between the depiction of classical and Biblical heroes was somewhat blurred. Michelangelo was contracted by the city of Florence to create a figure of Hercules that would accompany the famous David he had created for the city (Cole 169). The Old Testament figure retained its earlier connotations but those meanings were somewhat subjugated to the new secular iconography.
The central importance of David to Christians is clear from the opening of the first Gospel. Matthew introduces "the book of the g
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