Monument of the Four Moors

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.

It is the most famous monument of Livorno and is located in Piazza Micheli. Created by Pietro Tacca, the monument took 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.

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. 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. 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.

Although the four chained prisoners are meant to represent the victories of Ferdinando I over the Ottomans, there may also be a different interpretation due to the presence of the statue with the black African characteristics; Ferdinando II, grandson of Ferdinando I, completed the monument and he may also have been involved in slave trade activities in West Africa in the 1660s, in cooperation with the Genoans.

The four Moors symbolise the four corners of the world. 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.

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