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.

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.

Read more about Giusto Utens:  Lunettes of The Medicean Villas