TACCA, PIETRO. – Sculptor and architect, born at Carrara on 6 September 1577, died at Florence on 26 October 1640.
Having settled in Florence in 1592, he entered the school of Giambologna, under whose direction he collaborated, among other things, on the left-hand doors of Pisa Cathedral (Adoration of the Magi, 1601). Upon the death of his master, he succeeded him (1609) in the office of “court sculptor” and completed various of his works, among them the Monument to Ferdinando I in the Piazza della SS. Annunziata in Florence. Among his youthful works, in addition to the Equestrian Statue of Philip III of Spain in Madrid (1613), one should probably also include the popular bronze Porcellino of the Loggia del Mercato Nuovo in Florence, a replica of an ancient marble original in the Uffizi. Tacca’s masterpiece is the Four Moors (1623 and 1625), placed on the base of the Monument to Ferdinando I erected by Bandini at Livorno; they already foreshadow the Baroque. Tacca is likewise close to Giambologna in the style of the two fountains in the Piazza della SS. Annunziata in Florence (installed only in 1641), which had been commissioned from him for Livorno. After executing the models for the colossal gilded-bronze statues of Ferdinando I and Cosimo II for the Princes’ Chapel in S. Lorenzo in Florence, he undertook (after 1634) the Equestrian Monument to Philip IV of Spain (Madrid), boldly conceived with the horse rearing on its hind legs (for this work Tacca had before him a portrait of that king painted by Rubens). It was installed in 1642 by his son FERDINANDO (born at Florence in 1619, died there in 1686), his disciple and continuator, who was also the author, among other works, of the fine Bacchino of the fountain in the Piazza di Prato.