Monument of the Four Moors, Bronze monument in Livorno, Italy.
The Monument of the Four Moors stands in Piazza Micheli, Livorno. A marble statue of Grand Duke Ferdinand I, 4.41 metres tall, rises on a stone pedestal; at its base four dark bronze muscular male figures crouch chained at the corners. The pedestal has reddish-brown stone panels and bronze ornaments near the top.
The marble statue of Ferdinand I was carved by Giovanni Bandini in Carrara from 1595 and shipped by sea to Livorno in 1601, but stood at the edge of the dock square for 16 years until it was raised on its pedestal in 1617 under Cosimo II. In 1621 Pietro Tacca was commissioned to add the four chained Moors, which he finished between 1623 and 1626.
The four figures at the base are bound in chains and show different postures that can be viewed from all directions. The name of the memorial comes from the habit of calling the prisoners Moors after their North African origin.
The monument faces the small darsena that Ferdinand I had dug at the end of the 16th century, near the city walls, in Piazza Micheli. It can be viewed from the square at any hour; the four chained bronzes sit at the corners of the pedestal, so walk around the base to see each figure and the reddish-brown panels of the pedestal.
The monument's design influenced later sculpture: a fountain in Marino (1632–1642) has four chained prisoners, two with black African features, and Bernini may have drawn on it for the Fountain of the Four Rivers. Tacca's model is thought to come from three African-man columns supporting a balcony in Via Carriona, Carrara.
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