Pietro Tacca (Carrara September 16, 1557 – Florence 1640) was a Florentine sculptor, the chief pupil and follower of Giambologna, whose atelier he joined in 1592. Tacca began in a Mannerist style and worked in the Baroque style during his maturity. Tacca took over the workshop of his master Giovanni Bologna on the elder sculptor's death in 1608, completing 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 ([1] and Heracles and the Cerynian Stag [2] (now Louvre Museum) that are now attributed to Tacca, ca. 1620s [3]. Carrara is a city in the Massa Carrara province of Tuscany, Italy, famous for the white or blue-gray marble quarried there. ... Jump to: navigation, search September 16 is the 259th day of the year (260th in leap years). ... Events Spain is effectively bankrupt. ... Jump to: navigation, search Founded 59 BC as Florentia Region Tuscany Mayor Leonardo Domenici (Democratici di Sinistra) Area  - City Proper  102 km² Population  - City (2004)  - Metropolitan  - Density (city proper) 356,000 almost 500,000 3,453/km² Time zone CET, UTC+1 Latitude Longitude 43°47 N 11°15 E... Events January 30 - The death of Pope Innocent IX during the previous year had left the Papal throne vacant. ... Mannerism is the usual English term for an approach to all the arts, particularly painting but not exclusive to it, a reaction to the High Renaissance, emerging after the Sack of Rome in 1527 shook Renaissance confidence, humanism and rationality to their foundations, and even Religion had split apart. ... Adoration, by Peter Paul Rubens: dynamic figures spiral down around a void: draperies blow: a whirl of movement lit in a shaft of light, rendered in a free bravura handling of paint In arts, the Baroque (or baroque) is both a period and the style that dominated it. ... Portrait of Giovanni Bologna by Hendrick Goltzius Giambologna, born as Jean Boulogne, also known as Giovanni Da Bologna and Giovanni Bologna (1529 - 1608) was a sculptor who best known for his marble statuary and works in bronze. ... Events March 18 - Sissinios formally crowned Emperor of Ethiopia May 14 - Protestant Union founded in Auhausen. ... The Medici family was a powerful and influential Florentine family from the 13th to 17th century. ... // Unofficial Medici Rulers of Florence, 1434-1531 Cosimo de Medici 1434-1464 Piero I de Medici 1464-1469 (The Gouty) Lorenzo I de Medici 1469-1492 (The Magnificent) Giuliano de Medici 1469-1478 Piero II de Medici 1492-1494 Republic restored 1494-1512 Cardinal Giovanni de Medici 1512-1513 Lorenzo...

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). Santa Annunziata di Firenze The Basilica della Santissima Annunziata (Basilica of the Most Holy Annunciation) is a Roman Catholic minor basilica in Florence and the mother church of the Servite order. ...

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. Bartolommeo (or Baccio) Bandinelli (November 12, 1493 - February 7, 1560), Florentine sculptor, was the son of an eminent goldsmith, and from him Bandinelli obtained the first elements of drawing. ... Livorno, sometimes in English Leghorn, (population 170,000) is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. ...

Two bronze fountains destined for Livorno (ca 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, replaced by a copy [4], the original having been brought indoors. The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... The Uffizi Gallery (Italian: Galleria degli Uffizi) is a palace or palazzo in Florence, holding one of the oldest and most famous art museums in the world. ...

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 III of Spain Philip III (Spanish: Felipe III) (April 14, 1578 – March 31, 1621) was the king of Spain and Portugal (as Philip II Portuguese: Filipe II), from 1598 until his death. ... Marie de Medici (April 26, 1573 - July 3, 1642), born in Italy as Maria de Medici, was queen consort of France under the French name Marie de Médicis. ... Henry IV (French: Henri IV) (December 13, 1553 – May 14, 1610), called the Great (French: le Grand), was the first of the Bourbon kings of France, reigning from 1589 until 1610. ... The Île de la Cité seen from the West, with the Pont Neuf, in front, spanning across the river. ... 1792 was a leap year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Following the ouster of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1814, the Allies restored the Bourbon Dynasty to the French throne. ...

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 horse rears, and the entire weight of the sculpture balances on the two rear legs—and, discreetly, it tail— a feat that had never been attempted in a figure on a heroic scale, of which Leonardo had dreamed. Jump to: navigation, search Philip IV of Spain Philip IV (Spanish: Felipe IV) (April 8, 1605 – September 17, 1665) was the king of Spain, from 1621 until his death, and king of Portugal as Philip III (Portuguese: Filipe III) until 1640. ... The Adoration of the Magii, painted 1624. ... Palacio Real de Madrid The Palacio Real de Madrid (Royal Palace of Madrid) is the official residence of the King of Spain, located in the Spanish capital of Madrid. ... Leonardo redirects here. ...

His son Ferdinando Tacca assisted him in the atelier; the inventory (1687) after his death included sculptures doubtless by Pietro Tacca [6].

Compare Antonio Susini, another collaborator of Giambologna.

Tacca in museum collections

• Bargello, Florence: a representative selection of his small bronzes of animals
• J. Paul Getty Museum: Two putti holding shields, 1650–55
• Hermitage, St Petersburg: Boy blowing a horn c. 1620
• Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco: Slave (18th century reduction)
• National Gallery, Washington DC: Several bronzes attributed to Pietro Tacca in the Robert H. Smith Collection (Checklist, 2002; pdf file)
• Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna: Heracles Supporting the World from the collection of Louis XIV
• Frick Collection, New York: Nessus and Deianira after a model by Giambologna, now attributed to Pietro Tacca

Jump to: navigation, search A plaster copy of Donatellos David, one of the most famous statues in the Bargello For the type of embroidery, please visit Bargello (needlework) The Bargello palace was built in 1255 to house the Florence City Council. ...

External links

• Web Gallery of Art: Sculptures by Pietro Tacca
• Pietro Tacca: (in Italian; illustrated)
• "La statue équestre de Philippe IV à Madrid, par Pietro Tacca" (in French)
• Carlo Francini, "Restoration of the equestrian statue of Ferdinand de' Medici in Piazza SS. Apostoli"
• Paris Pittoresque: Pont Neuf (in French)

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)