Equestrian Statues of Philip III

In 1601 Pietro Tacca became the only member of Giambologna's workshop to be included in the official roll of the household of Grand Duke Ferdinand I de' Medici. By this time he was beginning to assume a supervisory role and was eventually given the responsibility for all commissions, many of them executed from his master's models. The pacing equestrian statue of Ferdinando I de' Medici (Piazza Santissima Annunziata, Florence) was cast by 1605 and installed in 1608. A similar monument to Henry IV, King of France was begun in 1604, but the statue was not placed on the Pont Neuf in Paris until 1614 (destroyed 1792). A third equestrian monument, to Philip III, King of Spain, was begun in 1606 and installed in Madrid, in the Casa del Campo of the Palacio Real gardens, in 1617. It is the earliest of the very few works signed by Tacca.

The Plaza Mayor was built during Philip III's reign (1598-1621) and is surrounded by three-story residential buildings and the four-story Casa de la Panadería (Bakery House), a municipal and cultural building with its sides crowned by angular towers. The Plaza Mayor of today is the work of the architect Juan de Villanueva who did a reconstruction in 1790 after a series of enormous fires. The equestrian statue of Philip III was moved in 1848 to its present site in the Plaza Mayor.