Giusto Utens

Giusto Utens or Justus Utens (died 1609) was a Flemish painter who is remembered for the series of Medicean villas in lunette form that he painted for the third grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando I, in 1599–1602. [Of seventeen, fourteen have survived, some in storage at Palazzo Pitti, others in the history museum of Florence, the "Museo di Firenze com'era."]

He moved to Carrara about 1580, where he married, and where later he returned and died.

The Medici villas illustrated by Utens from a bird's-eye perspective are:
*Villa Medici del Trebbio
*Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo
*Palazzo Pitti, the Boboli Gardens and Fort Belvedere
*Villa Medici di Castello
*Villa Medici La Petraia
*Villa Medicea di Pratolino
*Villa Medici dell'Ambrogiana
*Villa Medici di Lappeggi
*Villa Medici di Poggio a Caiano
*Villa Medici di Serravezza
*Villa Medici La Magia
*Villa Medici di Marignolle
*Villa Medici di Montevettolini
*Villa Medici di Colle Salvetti

The three missing lunettes are thought to be the Villa di Artimino and perhaps the Villa Medici di Careggi. In the early twentieth century an anonymous artist completed the scheme, based on eighteenth-century "vedute" illustrating the villa at Careggi, that at Cerreto Guidi and Poggio Imperiale, which in the sixteenth century was still the Villa di Poggio Baroncelli.

Lunettes of the Medicean villas

Pitti Palace and the Boboli Gardens

Villa Medicea dell'Ambrogiana

Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo

Villa Medicea di Castello

Villa Medicea La Magia

Villa Medicea La Petraia

Villa Medicea di Lappeggi

Villa di Pratolino

Villa Medicea del Trebbio

Villa Medicea di Collesalvetti

Villa Medicea di Poggio a Caiano

Villa Medicea di Marignolle

Villa Medicea di Montevettolini

Villa Medicea di Seravezza

ee also

*Villa Medici in Fiesole

References

Further reading

*cite book
first= Daniela
last= Mignani
title= The Medicean Villas by Giusto Utens
publisher= Arnaud
year= 1995
origyear= 1991
edition= 2nd edition
location= Florence
isbn= 8880150006