Pietro Tacca

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Giambologna's equestrian bronze of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany for the Piazza della SS. Annunziata; completed by his assistant, Pietro Tacca
Giambologna's equestrian bronze of Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany for the Piazza della SS. Annunziata; completed by his assistant, Pietro Tacca
Quattro Mori: slaves at the foot of the Monument of Ferdinand I de' Medici, Livorno
Quattro Mori: slaves at the foot of the Monument of Ferdinand I de' Medici, Livorno
Philip IV of Spain
Philip IV of Spain

Pietro Tacca (September 16, 1557 – October 26, 1640) was an Italian sculptor, who was the chief pupil and follower of Giambologna. Tacca began in a Mannerist style and worked in the Baroque style during his maturity.

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[edit] Biography

Born in Carrara, Tuscany, he joined Giambologna's atelier in 1592. Tacca took over the workshop of his master on the elder sculptor's death in 1608, finishing a number of Giambologna's incomplete projects, and succeeding him almost immediately as court sculptor to the Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany. Like his master he took full advantage of the fashion among connoisseurs for table-top reductions of fine bronze sculptures. Louis XIV possessed Giambolognesque bronzes of Heracles and the Erymanthian Boar ([2] and Heracles and the Cerynian Stag [3] (now Louvre Museum) that are now attributed to Tacca, and dated to the 1620s. [4].

Tacca began by finishing Giambologna's equestrian bronze of Ferdinand de' Medici for the Piazza della SS. Annunziata, a project in which he had participated at every stage, from the terracotta models to the casting process in the fall of 1602 and the finishing (by 1608).

Tacca's public works for the Medici include his masterpieces, the four Slaves (1620–24) at the foot of Baccio Bandinelli's statue of Ferdinand I de' Medici in Piazza della Darsena, Livorno. Bronze reproductions of these figures were still being reproduced for connoisseurs in the 18th century.

Fountain in Piazza Santissima Annunziata, Florence
Fountain in Piazza Santissima Annunziata, Florence

Two bronze fountains originally destined for Livorno (c. 1629), still in a highly Mannerist style indebted to Flemish Mannerist goldsmith's work for their grotesque masks and shellwork textures, were set up instead in Piazza della SS. Annunziata, Florence. For Giambologna's equestrian statue of Cosimo de' Medici in the Piazza della Signoria, Tacca contributed the bas-relief panels on its base.

Taking his inspiration from a famous marble copy of a Hellenistic marble boar (Il Cinghiale) in the ducal collection at the Uffizi, Tacca set himself the task of surpassing it: the result is the "Porcellino" (1612) of the Mercato Nuovo, Florence.[1]

For Madrid, Tacca executed Giambologna's equestrian bronze of Philip III (1616), which was moved in the 19th century to the Plaza Mayor. For Paris, by order of Marie de Medici he finished Giambologna's equestrian Henri IV (inaugurated August 23, 1613), which stood at the center of the Pont-Neuf but was destroyed in 1792 during the Revolution, then replaced with the present sculpture at the Restauration.

Philip IV of Spain.
Philip IV of Spain.

Tacca's last public commission was the colossal equestian bronze of Philip IV, said to have been based on the icography of a lost painting by Rubens [5], begun in 1634 and shipped to Madrid in 1640, the year of his death. The sculpture, atop a complicated fountain composition, forms the centerpiece of the façade of the Royal Palace. The daring stability of the statue was calculated by Galileo Galilei: The horse rears, and the entire weight of the sculpture balances on the two rear legs—and, discreetly, its tail— a feat that had never been attempted in a figure on a heroic scale, of which Leonardo had dreamed.

His son Ferdinando Tacca assisted him in the atelier; the inventory (1687) after his death included sculptures doubtless by Pietro Tacca [6]. The studio was taken over by Giovanni Battista Foggini upon the death of Fernando in Florence.

Compare Antonio Susini, another collaborator of Giambologna.

[edit] Tacca in museum collections

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[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Today it is replaced by a copy, the original having been brought indoors.[1]

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading

  • K.J.Watson 1973. Pietro Tacca, successor to Giovanni Bologna: the first twenty-five years in the Borgo Pinti Studio: 1592-1617 Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania)
  • P. Torriti 1975. Pietro Tacca di Carrara, (Genoa)