Monument of the Four Moors

Last updated April 01, 2024

The Monument of the Four Moors (Italian : Monumento dei Quattro mori) is located in Livorno, Italy. It was completed in 1626 to commemorate the victories of Ferdinand I of Tuscany over the Ottomans.^[1]

It is the most famous monument of Livorno and is located in Piazza Micheli.^[2] Created by Pietro Tacca, the monument takes its name from the four bronze statues of "Moorish" slaves that are found at the base of an earlier work consisting of the statue of Ferdinando I and its monumental pedestal.^[2]

History

In 1617, Cosimo II contracted sculptor Pietro Tacca to create the monument to commemorate his father, Ferdinando I. The completed monument was installed in Livorno in 1626.^[1] It features four bronze statues of enslaved prisoners chained at the base of a statue of Ferdinando I which had been commissioned at an earlier date.^[1] The physical characteristics of three of the statues represent people of the southern Mediterranean coast while the fourth statue has characteristics of a black African.^[1]

Although the four chained prisoners are meant to represent the victories of Ferdinando I over the Ottomans, some scholars have posited different interpretations due to the presence of the statue with the black African characteristics.^[1]

The four Moors symbolise the four corners of the world.^[3] Tacca's design of the Moors monument is assumed to have been influenced by three columns in the shape of African men supporting a balcony in Via Carriona in Carrara. The three sculptures are depicted as suffering from the weight they bear supporting the iron structure.^[3]

Influence

The monument of the four Moors influenced sculptural design for several decades. A fountain in Marino features four statues of similarly chained prisoners, two of whom possess black African characteristics. The structure was constructed between 1632–1642 to commemorate Marcantonio Colonna's participation in the battle of Lepanto in 1571 which led to the defeat of the Ottomans.^[1]

The monument of the four Moors also influenced Bernini's creation of the Fountain of the Four Rivers (Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi). Bernini may have also been influenced by the Marino monument in his design of the Fountain.^[1]

The ostentatious design of the tomb of Doge Giovanni Pesaro, which was built in 1669 in Venice, and is found in Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari close to the Pesaro Altarpiece, was perhaps strongly influenced by Tacca's monument of the four Moors.^[4]

Related Research Articles

Gian LorenzoBernini was an Italian sculptor and architect. While a major figure in the world of architecture, he was more prominently the leading sculptor of his age, credited with creating the Baroque style of sculpture. As one scholar has commented, "What Shakespeare is to drama, Bernini may be to sculpture: the first pan-European sculptor whose name is instantaneously identifiable with a particular manner and vision, and whose influence was inordinately powerful ..." In addition, he was a painter and a man of the theatre: he wrote, directed and acted in plays, for which he designed stage sets and theatrical machinery. He produced designs as well for a wide variety of decorative art objects including lamps, tables, mirrors, and even coaches.

Giambologna, also known as Jean de Boulogne (French), Jehan Boulongne (Flemish) and Giovanni da Bologna (Italian), was the last significant Italian Renaissance sculptor, with a large workshop producing large and small works in bronze and marble in a late Mannerist style.

Livorno is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of the Tuscany region, Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Livorno, having a population of 158,493 residents in December 2017. It is traditionally known in English as Leghorn.

Piazza Navona is a public open space in Rome, Italy. It is built on the site of the 1st century AD Stadium of Domitian and follows the form of the open space of the stadium in an elongated oval. The ancient Romans went there to watch the agones ("games"), and hence it was known as "Circus Agonalis". It is believed that over time the name changed to in avone to navone and eventually to navona.

Santa Maria della Vittoria is a Catholic titular church and basilica dedicated to the Virgin Mary in Rome, Italy. The church is known for the masterpiece by Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the Cornaro Chapel, the Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. The church is in the Rione Sallustiano, on number 98 via XX Settembre, where this street intersects with Largo Santa Susanna. It stands to the side of the Fontana dell'Acqua Felice. The church mirrors the Church of Santa Susanna across the Largo. It is about two blocks northwest of the Piazza della Repubblica and Teatro dell'Opera metro station.

Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi is a fountain in the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy. It was designed in 1651 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini for Pope Innocent X whose family palace, the Palazzo Pamphili, faced onto the piazza as did the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone of which Innocent was the sponsor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pietro Tacca</span> Italian sculptor

Pietro Tacca 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.

Fontana del Moro is a fountain located at the southern end of the Piazza Navona in Rome, Italy. It depicts a nautical scene with tritons, dolphins, and a conch shell. It was originally designed by Giacomo della Porta in the 1570s with later contributions from Gian Lorenzo Bernini in the 1650s. Bernini sculpted a large terracotta model of the central figure, which Giovanni Antonio Mari used as a guide when sculpting the final figure. There is a debate around whether or not the central figure was intended by Bernini to depict a Moor. Some of the original sculptures were moved to the Galleria Borghese in 1874. In 2011, the fountain was vandalized.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pietro Francavilla</span> French sculptor

Pierre Franqueville, generally called Pietro Francavilla, was a Franco-Flemish sculptor trained in Florence, who provided sculpture for Italian and French patrons in the elegant Late Mannerist tradition established by Giambologna.

Baroque sculpture is the sculpture associated with the Baroque style of the period between the early 17th and mid 18th centuries. In Baroque sculpture, groups of figures assumed new importance, and there was a dynamic movement and energy of human forms—they spiralled around an empty central vortex, or reached outwards into the surrounding space. Baroque sculpture often had multiple ideal viewing angles, and reflected a general continuation of the Renaissance move away from the relief to sculpture created in the round, and designed to be placed in the middle of a large space—elaborate fountains such as Gian Lorenzo Bernini‘s Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi, or those in the Gardens of Versailles were a Baroque speciality. The Baroque style was perfectly suited to sculpture, with Bernini the dominating figure of the age in works such as The Ecstasy of St Theresa (1647–1652). Much Baroque sculpture added extra-sculptural elements, for example, concealed lighting, or water fountains, or fused sculpture and architecture to create a transformative experience for the viewer. Artists saw themselves as in the classical tradition, but admired Hellenistic and later Roman sculpture, rather than that of the more "Classical" periods as they are seen today.

Taddeo Landini was an Italian sculptor and architect of the Mannerist period, active mainly in his native Florence and after 1580, in Rome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robba Fountain</span>

The Robba Fountain, since the first half of the 20th century also known as the Fountain of the Three Carniolan Rivers, is the fountain that stands in front of Ljubljana Town Hall at Town Square in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. It was originally made in 1751 by the Italian sculptor Francesco Robba and is one of the city's most recognisable symbols.

Jacopo Inghirami was admiral of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany and marquis of Montevitozzo.

San Ferdinando is a Baroque style, Roman Catholic church located in Venezia Nuova district next to Piazza del Luogo Pio in Livorno, region of Tuscany, Italy. It is also called San Ferdinando Re or the Church of the Crocetta. Nearby is the deconsecrated church of Sant'Anna.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Equestrian Monument of Ferdinando I</span>

The Equestrian Monument of Ferdinando I is a bronze equestrian statue by Giambologna, executed in 1602–1607, and erected in 1608 in the Piazza of the Annunziata in Florence, region of Tuscany, Italy.

The two fontane dei mostri marini are located in the Piazza della Santissima Annunziata in Florence, Italy.

The equestrian statue of Henry IV is a bronze equestrian statue completed by Pietro Tacca. The statue, which now stands on the bridge Pont Neuf, was indirectly commissioned by Marie de Médicis for her husband, King Henry IV of France. The original commissioned artist, Giambologna, died before its completion, and Pietro Tacca took over the commission. The statue was erected in 1614, torn down in 1792 during the French Revolution, and rebuilt by 1818.

The Monument to the Fallen is a Fascist-era monument located in the center of Piazza San Francesco in Pistoia, Tuscany, Italy. The monument was meant to recall those fallen in the battles of World War I between 1915 and 1918. Though completed some years before, the bronze statue was only installed in 1926 with the King in attendance. The bronze statue shows a muscular, partly nude, semi-recumbent man sheltering a statue of Victory as he glares to the distance. The statue is on a marble base with flanking bas-reliefs depicting a winged victory and a mother and child sharing bundles of wheat (fasces). The sculptor, Silvio Canevari (1891–1953), would go on to sculpt statues of athletes for the Stadio dei Marmi in Rome. Many of this statues, including The Pugilist and his Monument to Victory at Civita Castellana, also focus on the athletic man in combat.

References

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 David Bindman; Henry Louis Gates; Karen C. C. Dalton (2010). The Image of the Black in Western Art: From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition : artists of the Renaissance and Baroque. Harvard University Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-674-05261-1.
1 2 Touring Club of Italy (2005). Authentic Tuscany. Touring Editore. p. 52. ISBN 978-88-365-3297-1.
1 2 Eric Scigliano (1 November 2007). Michelangelo's Mountain: The Quest For Perfection in the Marble Quarries of Carrara. Simon and Schuster. p. 138. ISBN 978-1-4165-9135-1.
↑ James G. Harper (2011). The Turk and Islam in the Western Eye, 1450–1750: Visual Imagery Before Orientalism. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 56–57. ISBN 978-0-7546-6330-0.

External links

Media related to Monumento dei Quattro Mori (Livorno) at Wikimedia Commons

43°32′58″N10°18′17″E / 43.5495°N 10.3048°E / 43.5495; 10.3048

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[BindmanGates2010-1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 David Bindman; Henry Louis Gates; Karen C. C. Dalton (2010). The Image of the Black in Western Art: From the "Age of Discovery" to the Age of Abolition : artists of the Renaissance and Baroque. Harvard University Press. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-674-05261-1.

[Italy2005-2] 1 2 Touring Club of Italy (2005). Authentic Tuscany. Touring Editore. p. 52. ISBN 978-88-365-3297-1.

[Scigliano2007-3] 1 2 Eric Scigliano (1 November 2007). Michelangelo's Mountain: The Quest For Perfection in the Marble Quarries of Carrara. Simon and Schuster. p. 138. ISBN 978-1-4165-9135-1.

[Harper2011-4] James G. Harper (2011). The Turk and Islam in the Western Eye, 1450–1750: Visual Imagery Before Orientalism. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. pp. 56–57. ISBN 978-0-7546-6330-0.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]