Villa Medici del Trebbio by Giusto Utens (Flemish artist, 1558-1609) who painted a series of 14 glasses of villas & amp; Their gardens near Florence. The Villa del Trebbio is a Medici villa in Tuscany, Italy, located near San Piero a Sieve in the Mugello region, in the province of Florence, in the area from which the Medici family originated. It was one of the first of the Medici villas built outside Florence. The estate is situated on a strategic position in the Apennines, on the top of a hill dominating the Val di Sieve, near a crossroads (giving rise to its name, from the Latin trivium). The villa belonged to Giovanni di Bicci de' Medici, the founder of the Medici bank & of the fortunes of the Medici family. Following his death in 1429, it was remodelled by his son, Cosimo de' Medici, whose architect, Michelozzo, restyled it as a fortified castle. Michelozzo retained the windowless tower, moat & drawbridge, & added a perimeter walkway with corbels. There is a central courtyard with a well. The villa remained essentially a fortified house, but various features indicate its secondary purpose as a place of pleasure, including an early walled garden, built on two terraces beside the villa. The upper terrace has a stone pergola, with a double row of columns; a similar pergola has disappeared from the lower terrace. The garden was a place of retreat for Cosimo, away from the troubles of politics in Florence, where he could tend his fruit trees. On the other side of the villa stands a chapel. The villa was surrounded by woods & an agricultural estate, bordering that of the Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo. In the 16C the villa was enlarged by Cosimo I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who enjoyed hunting in the estate, & his son Ferdinand I. Ferdinand II sold the estate to a wealthy Florentine, Giuliano Serragli, in 1644, who gave it to the Oratorians.
By the Renaissance, artists began to paint secular scenes including landscapes, breaking away from the dominant religious art of medieval painters. Partly out of interest in the natural world & partly out of nostalgia for classical Greece & Rome, paintings became valued as symbolic & allegorical objects & as depictions of earthly success & status. The period in Europe was the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages & modern history. The relationship between man & nature was evolving as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of nature." Images began to depict natural landscapes & more formal garden settings, where man was obviously using his intelligence, wealth, & power to shape & control the nature around him for sustenance & for pleasure. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of the owner's wealth & culture as his house or art collection.
Villa Medicea di Marignolle by Giusto Utens (Flemish artist, 1558-1609) who painted a series of 14 glasses of villas & their gardens near Florence. The Villa di Marignolle is a Medici villa in the hills between Galluzzo & Soffiano, in the south-western suburbs of Florence, in Tuscany in central Italy. It passed into the hands of the Medici family after the Pucci Conspiracy, when it was confiscated from Lorenzo di Piero Ridolfi by Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. By the Renaissance, artists began to paint secular scenes including landscapes, breaking away from the dominant religious art of medieval painters. Partly out of interest in the natural world & partly out of nostalgia for classical Greece & Rome, paintings became valued as symbolic & allegorical objects & as depictions of earthly success & status. The period in Europe was the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages & modern history. The relationship between man & nature was evolving as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of nature." Images began to depict natural landscapes & more formal garden settings, where man was obviously using his intelligence, wealth, & power to shape & control the nature around him for sustenance & for pleasure. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of the owner's wealth & culture as his house or art collection.
Villa Medicea La Petraia laid out by Niccolò Tribolo by Giusto Utens (Flemish artist, 1558-1609) who painted a series of 14 glasses of villas & their gardens near Florence. Petraia is one of the most attractive of the Medici villas, both on account of its position in the Tuscan landscape, & for its fine pictorial decoration & the beauty of its garden & park. Originally an ancient fortified residence, which preserves its great tower, it was enlarged at the end of the 16C to create the present villa with its beautifully designed terraced garden. The Medici family purchased the villa in the middle of the 16C. Around 1566-1568, Cosimo I had the complex restructured, & gave it to his son Ferdinando I (first cardinal, & later Grand Duke) who completed the works. The garden in front of the villa develops on three superimposed terraces, created by means of major infill works. Water served exclusively to irrigate the areas of the garden planted with fruit trees & officinal plants. The old castle that already existed in 1362 changed owners several times (Brunelleschi, Strozzi, Alessandra dei Bardi, Salutati) & was finally acquired by the Medici when they returned to Florence in 1530. Transferred from Cosimo I to his son, Cardinal Ferdinando in 1568, it was enlarged & transformed into a Villa on initiative of the latter who became Gran Duke after the death of his brother Francis I (1587).
By the Renaissance, artists began to paint secular scenes including landscapes, breaking away from the dominant religious art of medieval painters. Partly out of interest in the natural world & partly out of nostalgia for classical Greece & Rome, paintings became valued as symbolic & allegorical objects & as depictions of earthly success & status. The period in Europe was the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages & modern history. The relationship between man & nature was evolving as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of nature." Images began to depict natural landscapes & more formal garden settings, where man was obviously using his intelligence, wealth, & power to shape & control the nature around him for sustenance & for pleasure. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of the owner's wealth & culture as his house or art collection.
Villa Medicea di Poggio a Caiano in 1599 by Giusto Utens (Flemish artist, 1558-1609) who painted a series of 14 glasses of villas & their gardens near Florence. This Grand Ducal villa is situated on a hill on the shores of the river Ombrone. Poggio a Caiano is located at the intersection of straight lines from Florence to the city of Pistoia, & from the city of Prato & to Montalbano. Poggio a Caiano lies 9 km south of the provincial capital of Prato.The building of the villa was almost entirely due to Laurence the Magnificent who built the Medici Villa on the site of an ancient castle which once belonged to the powerful Cancellieri family of Pistoia. After 1420 it was bought by the Strozzi & finally by the Medici. The villa at Poggio a Caiano always remained the summer residence of the Medici, and, other than hosting numerous notable personalities, it was a stage for the important events in their history, such as the weddings of Alessandro dè Medici & Margherita d'Austria (1536), Cosimo I & Eleonora da Toledo (1539), & that of Francesco I & his lover Bianca Cappello (1579). From the hill that gives the town its name there is a fine view over the plain of the Ombrone & Bisenzio rivers toward Prato to the north & Florence to the east, & over the lowlands leading to Pistoia & the Appenine mountains. It was not by accident that Lorenzo de' Medici chose this site to build his Villa, the building which is still the most dominant in the town, to the point that the one is always identified by the other. The Villa Medicea at Poggio a Caiano was built by Lorenzo dè Medici & his heirs from the design of Giuliano da San Gallo between 1485 & about 1520, with a probable break in construction from 1495 to 1513 because of the exile of the Medici from Florence. It always remained the summer residence of the Medici, and, other than hosting numerous notable personalities, it was a stage for the important events in their history, such as the weddings of Alessandro dè Medici & Margherita d'Austria (1536), Cosimo I & Eleonora da Toledo(1539), & that of Francesco I & his lover Bianca Cappello (1579).
In 1473 a ruined fortified house at Poggio a Caiano, called the Ambra, & land & a mill owned by Giovanni Rucellai, were bought by Lorenzo de’ Medici. First, agricultural improvements were carried out, then in 1485 work started on the Medici Villa del Poggio, the Villa on the Hill, to designs by Giuliano da Sangallo commissioned by Lorenzo. Prior to the building of this villa large country dwellings were defensive, fortified & with rooms looking into a central courtyard. Built on a quadrangular base around a large central hall with rooms having windows overlooking the surrounding countryside, the Villa del Poggio was revolutionary. At Lorenzo’s death in 1492 the villa remained largely unfinished, work being resumed when Lorenzo’s youngest son, Giovanni became pope as Leo X. The central hall is named after this first Medici pope. In the following century the villa was used by the Medici Grand Dukes of Tuscany; in 1587 Francis, the second Grand Duke, & Bianca Capello died at there within a day of one another after short illnesses, raising the still unsolved question of their poisoning by Francis’s brother Ferdinand, who became the third Grand Duke. The formal gardens, now somewhat wild, slope down to the River Ombrone at the rear of the villa. Next to the Villa there are several buildings such as the chapel (where one finds the "Pietà with Saint Cosimo & Saint Damiano" painted in 1560 by Giorgio Vasari)
By the Renaissance, artists began to paint secular scenes including landscapes, breaking away from the dominant religious art of medieval painters. Partly out of interest in the natural world & partly out of nostalgia for classical Greece & Rome, paintings became valued as symbolic & allegorical objects & as depictions of earthly success & status. The period in Europe was the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages & modern history. The relationship between man & nature was evolving as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of nature." Images began to depict natural landscapes & more formal garden settings, where man was obviously using his intelligence, wealth, & power to shape & control the nature around him for sustenance & for pleasure. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of the owner's wealth & culture as his house or art collection.
Villa Medici by Lorenzo di Castello purchased this de 'Medici in 1477 by Giusto Utens (Flemish artist, 1558-1609) who painted a series of 14 lunette glasses of villas & their gardens near Florence, for the 3rd grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando I, in 1599–1602.
The Villa di Castello, in the hills near Florence, Tuscany, central Italy, was the country residence of Cosimo I de 'Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (1519 to 1574). The gardens, filled with fountains, statuary, & a grotto, were famous throughout Europe. The villa housed some of the great art treasures of Florence, including Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Renaissance masterpieces Venus & amp; Primavera. The gardens of the Villa Had a profound impact upon the design of the Italian Renaissance garden & later on the French formal garden. Villa Castello is located in the hills northwest of Florence, near the small town of Sesto Fiorentino. The Villa Was located near a Roman aqueduct, & took its name from the water cisterns (castella) near the site. A fortified building had been standing on the site since at least 1427 & was purchased in 1477 by Lorenzo & Giovanni di Pierfrancesco de 'Medici, who reconstructed the old building, added a courtyard, a loggia, kitchens & a stable. The house was inherited by a famed mercenary soldier, Giovanni dalle Bande Nere & his wife, Maria Salviati, the relatives of Cosimo who was born in 1519 & lived in the house as a child.
In 1537, the 26-year-old Duke of Florence, Alessandro de 'Medici, was assassinated, & Cosimo, though he was only 17 & a relatively unknown a member of the Medici family, was elected by the men of Florence to replace him. In 1537, the young Cosimo faced a rebellion by a faction which wanted to turn Florence into a Republic. He defeated them at the battle of Montemurlo, & established himself as the unrivaled ruler of the city. Cosimo I de Medici was 19 years of age, at the time he was building the gardens of Villa di Castello. The garden level is based on harmony & order, the principles upon which Cosimo planned to rule Florence. Was the garden filled with statuary associating the virtues of ancient Rome with the power & virtue of the ruler of Florence. Walking through the garden, visitors saw busts of the Medici dynasty in ancient Roman costume. Once his power was secure, Cosimo began to spend more time at his villa in Castello. As the architect & writer Giorgio Vasari wrote, "At this place the Duke Began to build a little, one thing after-Reviews another, to the end he might that be there more commodiously, himself & his court." Cosimo commissioned the engineer Piero da San Casciano to construct a system of aqueducts to bring water to the villa & its gardens, the sculptor Niccolò Tribolo to create fountains, statues & a garden, & the architect Giorgio Vasari to restore & enlarge the villa. First, under the leadership of Piero da San Casciano, an aqueduct constructed from the Castella was built higher up the slope of Monte Morello connected to a small tank he built on the hill above-the villa. Later, when more water was needed, another aqueduct was built from another spring at Petraia. Tribolo's design for the garden was described in great detail in Vasari's Lives of the Artists. The garden was constructed on the site of the original walled garden, which ran from the villa up the gentle slope toward the mountain. On the hillside above the back wall of the garden, there was the water tank. Here Tribolo created a bosco, simulated natural forest, separated from the garden by a high retaining wall. Below this, he divided into the old walled garden by two other walls , & carved out a small upper terrace & a broad lower terrace, connected by two ornamental stairways. The smaller upper garden was planted with orange & lemon trees, trained to grow up the walls. It also contained, in the center of the back wall, the entrance to the grotto, a small cellar which resembled a natural cavern, richly decorated & filled with sculpture. The larger lower garden was divided into squares, like small rooms, divided by paths & bordered by hedges & rows of cedar & olive trees, & filled with flower beds. In the center of the terrace was a circular labyrinth of cypress trees planted with laurel, myrtle & roses. In the center of the labyrinth was fountain crowned by a statue of Venus. And second, larger fountain, crowned with a bronze statue of Hercules defeating Antaeus.
The hydraulic system of the garden was one of the wonders of the age, & it also played a significant share in the symbolism of the garden. In the center of the tank above the garden, in the "sacred wood" was a statue of Appenino symbolizing the mountains of Tuscany, portrayed as an old man shivering, with water pouring over his head. Water flowed from the tank down bronze pipes & emerged in two fountains built in the retaining wall on either side of the grotto, representing the two rivers of Florence. Water flowed into the grotto, running down the walls. The two "rivers" in their channels flowed through the garden. Fountains during the renaissance depended upon gravity, & the elevation of the water source above-the fountain, to make the water shoot upwards. Because the water source for the fountain of Hercules & Antaeus was high on the hillside above the fountains, a jet of water spouted a full 3 meters. Once it had passed through the fountains, the water flowed in two separate channels into two small private gardens on either side of the villa, & then entered 2 wide fishponds in front of the villa. After that, the water was used to irrigate the fields & gardens below. The garden contained a series of ingenious giochi d'acqua, or "water jokes," to entertain the Duke & his visitors. The grotto designed so that by turning a key the gate would lock. Guests inside the grotto would be soaked with water from hidden pipes. The fountain of Hercules to be was surrounded by a circle of trees, & a hidden pipe. By turning another key, spectators looking at the fountain would be sprayed with water from hidden nozzles. Aussi There Was a small house Located in the branches of an oak tree Enormous, just east of the garden. The house was Reached by a stairway, & amp; contained a marble table & amp; a fountain served by pipes from the tank.
The garden was designed to deliver a clear political message; That, after-long period of warfare & Suffering, Cosimo was going to lead Florence into a new Golden Age, with peace, prosperity, & harmony. Tribolo placed symbolic messages throughout all the garden. The fountain of Hercules & Antaeus showed how Cosimo, like Hercules, had defeated enemies by his wisdom, rather than just brute strength. The fountain of Venus Was a tribute to Venus, one of the symbols of Florence. It was a reminder that she had Ruled Venus over the islands of the Hesperides. Venus was honored inside the Villa, where Cosimo placed the famous painting by Botticelli, the Birth of Venus. Tribolo continued the post symbolic statuary throughout the garden. The stairways were decorated with busts of the Medici rulers Earlier, in Roman costumes. Tribolo placed statues around the gardens representing the four seasons, & the virtues of the House of Medici - justice, compassion, valor, nobility, wisdom, & liberality. The garden was only not just form of political theater; It was a pleasure garden as well. Cosimo's letters revealed that he spent many long summer afternoons with his family enjoying the coolness of the shade & the fountains. Important visitors to Florence also visited the gardens. Their fame spread around Europe. Vasari wrote, "too much occupied with the affairs of the Duke." He was able to personally finish the 2 major fountains, & the 2 rivers. He died in 1550, & the statues for the fountains were finished by his pupil, Antonio di Gino.
Work on the villa & gardens continued for 20 years. Cosimo began making new apartments in the Palazzo Vecchio, & he purchased this Pitti Palace in the 1549, & began building the Boboli garden, with more fountains & an even larger grotto, decorated with statues by Michelangelo. Struck by the death of 2 sons from malaria, he retired from political life, turned power over his heir, Francesco I de 'Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, & spent the last 10 years of life in the villa & gardens. Cosimo died in 1574, & long succession of the Villa Medicis occupied these gardens. Ferdinando I de 'Medici completed the villa in this form in 1588 &1595, enlarging the east side, remaking the facade, & adding a new entrance on the south side.
By the Renaissance, artists began to paint secular scenes including landscapes, breaking away from the dominant religious art of medieval painters. Partly out of interest in the natural world & partly out of nostalgia for classical Greece & Rome, paintings became valued as symbolic & allegorical objects & as depictions of earthly success & status. The period in Europe was the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages & modern history. The relationship between man & nature was evolving as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of nature." Images began to depict natural landscapes & more formal garden settings, where man was obviously using his intelligence, wealth, & power to shape & control the nature around him for sustenance & for pleasure. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of the owner's wealth & culture as his house or art collection.
Villa Medici at Cafaggiolo by Giusto Utens (Flemish artist, 1558-1609) who painted a series of 14 lunette glasses of villas & their gardens near Florence, for the 3rd grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando I, in 1599–1602. Just as Renaissance architecture looked back to the classical civilizations, so did Renaissance garden design. The gardens of Renaissance were terraced with ilex groves and walks bordered with myrtle and statuary, just like those of the ancient Romans. To the humanist Renaissance noble, the gardens were of equal importance as the villa. The hallmarks of Renaissance architecture were symmetry, balance and precise proportions, and if the Villa Medicea di Cafaggiolo itself did not quite meet these demands, its gardens certainly did. Renaissance principles were strictly applied to the garden's design: during this era a garden came to be viewed as an extension of the house itself and as such was arranged in the same order. Statuary and seating were placed much as it was within the house - lining compartmentalised sections, the sections representing rooms and halls. Grottoes provided not only protection from the sun but a setting for allegorical scenes depicted in statuary and water. At Cafaggiolo, the greatest sculptors of the day were employed on the creation of the fountains, grottoes and statuary, including Tribolo, Vasari and Buontalenti, who created sculptured tableaux depicting scenes in stone conceived by Benedetto Varchi. Utens' view of the villa in 1599 also shows another popular garden feature of the era - water. Often a scarce commodity, when water was available, it was piped to fountains and cascades - providing not only the obvious irrigation, but also movement and sound. The presence of water also permitted the greatest luxury in a Tuscan garden, green grass. This symbol of luxury was usually planted only near the house where it could be constantly admired. Topiary and hedging, which demanded less moisture, was used in preference to colorful planting, providing the seclusion necessary to divide the garden into compartmentalized sections, and also shade and living green statuary. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of the owner's wealth and culture as his house or art collection.
By the Renaissance, artists began to paint secular scenes including landscapes, breaking away from the dominant religious art of medieval painters. Partly out of interest in the natural world & partly out of nostalgia for classical Greece & Rome, paintings became valued as symbolic & allegorical objects & as depictions of earthly success & status. The period in Europe was the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages & modern history. The relationship between man & nature was evolving as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of nature." Images began to depict natural landscapes & more formal garden settings, where man was obviously using his intelligence, wealth, & power to shape & control the nature around him for sustenance & for pleasure. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of the owner's wealth & culture as his house or art collection.
Villa di Pratolino by Giusto Utens (Flemish artist, 1558-1609) who painted a series of 14 lunette glasses of villas & their gardens near Florence, for the 3rd grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando I, in 1599–1602. The Villa di Pratolino was a Renaissance patrician villa in Vaglia, Tuscany, Italy. It was mostly demolished in 1820: its remains are now part of Villa Demidoff, 12 km north of Florence, reached from the main road to Bologna. The villa was built by the solitary Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany in part to please his Venetian mistress, the celebrated Bianca Capello. The designer of villa and gardens was his court architect Bernardo Buontalenti, who completed it in a single project that lasted from 1569 to 1581; it was finished enough to provide the setting for Francesco's public wedding to Bianca Cappello in 1579. In its time it was a splendid example of the Mannerist garden. Francesco had assembled most of the property, which was not a hereditary Medici possession, by September 1568, and the construction was begun the following spring. The garden was laid out along a perfectly straight down-slope axis passing through the center of the villa, which stood midway. Down the central descent, the visitor still walks under a cooling arch of fountain jets, without getting wet. Michel de Montaigne, one of the earliest visitors to leave a description of Pratolino, saw it in 1581, and considered it to have been built, he thought when visiting Villa d'Este, "precisely in rivalry with this place". A long description was published by a Florentine, Francesco de' Vieri, in 1586. Giusto Utens included a view of the southern half of the villa complex among his series of lunettes containing bird's-eye views of the Medicean villas, painted in 1599. Though the villa and its fountains were kept in repair, after Francesco's death it was deserted.
By the Renaissance, artists began to paint secular scenes including landscapes, breaking away from the dominant religious art of medieval painters. Partly out of interest in the natural world & partly out of nostalgia for classical Greece & Rome, paintings became valued as symbolic & allegorical objects & as depictions of earthly success & status. The period in Europe was the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages & modern history. The relationship between man & nature was evolving as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of nature." Images began to depict natural landscapes & more formal garden settings, where man was obviously using his intelligence, wealth, & power to shape & control the nature around him for sustenance & for pleasure. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of the owner's wealth & culture as his house or art collection.
Palazzo Pitti, the Boboli Gardens & amp; Fort Belvedere by Giusto Utens (Flemish artist, 1558-1609) who painted a series of 14 lunette glasses of villas & their gardens near Florence, for the 3rd grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando I, in 1599–1602.
Annexed to the Palazzo Pitti Museum complex, the Boboli Garden is one of the most famous formal 16C Italian gardens & a veritable open air museum, with a unique architectural plan & dozens of statues hiding amidst the multicoloured plants. The garden has a triangular plan, with two, steeply sloping orthogonal axes, which terminate in the Bacino di Nettuno (fountain of Neptune). The creation of artificial grottoes was an introduction of Mannerist style to Italian, & then to French, gardens of the mid 16C. Two famous grottoes in the Boboli Gardens of Palazzo Pitti were begun by Vasari & completed by Ammanati & Buontalenti between 1583 & 1593. The lemonscent is always in the air, as the Boboli gardens has a great collection of old lemon plants in terracotta pots. In the winter the lemon plants are brought to the 'limonaia' where they are protected against the winter cold. The Boboli gardens lie directly behind the Pitti Palace & were created for the Medici when they moved in during 1550. They really are spectacular because of the mixture of art & gardens sitting together, side by side, in harmony. The gardens laid out behind Santa Felicita in Oltrarno by the Borgolo family, the name from which Boboli is thought to derive, were bought in 1418 by Luca Pitti. In the mid-15C Pitti commissioned the construction of a grand palace, which is believed to have been designed by Luca Fancelli,with the help of his master Filippo Brunelleschi. In 1549 the property was bought by Cosimo I’s wife Eleonora da Toledo, & became the Medici family’s city residence. Niccolò Tribolo was engaged to design the gardens, & it is probably he who excavated the hill to create the Amphitheatre, a highly successful creation in both perspective & functional terms. It created the garden’s first perspective vista (running north- west /south-east), a prospect that began at the main entrance to the palace & continued across to the hill & all the way to Forte Belvedere. When Tribolo died, work continued under the direction of Bartolomeo Ammannati (1511-1592) & subsequently Bernardo Buontalenti (1555-1635). In the 17C Giulio Parigi (1568-1635) & his son Alfonso devised the second perspective vista,which was to run at right angles to the first, in the direction of Porta Romana.The triangular garden has two orthogonal axes which meet roughly at the Fountain-Basin of Neptune; the steeply sloping avenues run across the central walk & are organised as a series of terraces with smaller avenues, footpaths, sculptures or landscaping elements leading to specific garden features: glades, enclosed gardens or buildings.The visit begins at the fountain featuring the statue of a dwarf riding a tortoise, sculpted in 1560 by Valerio Cigoli (1529-1599). Opposite the entrance is the Buontalenti Grotto,a series of three communicating chambers: the first, with stucco-work decorations, is characterized by pastoral scenes executed by Bernardino Poccetti (1542-1612); the second contains a marble statue group depicting the abduction of Helen by Paris, sculpted by Vincenzo Rossi da Fiesole (1525-1587); the third, frescoed by Poccianti, has a fine fountain by Giambologna (1529-1608) depicting Venus emerging from the water after bathing. Beyond the statues of the Dacian Prisoners, the route through the gardens continues and, next to the rising avenue, passes the Jupiter Garden with a seated statue of Jupiter & the adjoining Madama Garden. The avenue leads up to the grand Amphitheatre & the Artichoke Fountain, whose large octagonal basin is decorated with numerous statues & crowned by a bronze artichoke by Francesco Susini. The great horseshoe-shaped sweep of the amphitheatre was possibly originally conceived as a piece of landscaping, & in 1599, was embellished with steps (still in existence) topped by aedicules with niches containing bronze statues & terra-cotta urns.
By the Renaissance, artists began to paint secular scenes including landscapes, breaking away from the dominant religious art of medieval painters. Partly out of interest in the natural world & partly out of nostalgia for classical Greece & Rome, paintings became valued as symbolic & allegorical objects & as depictions of earthly success & status. The period in Europe was the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages & modern history. The relationship between man & nature was evolving as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of nature." Images began to depict natural landscapes & more formal garden settings, where man was obviously using his intelligence, wealth, & power to shape & control the nature around him for sustenance & for pleasure. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of the owner's wealth & culture as his house or art collection.
Villa Medici di Colle Salvetti by Giusto Utens (Flemish artist, 1558-1609) who painted a series of 14 lunette glasses of villas & their gardens near Florence, for the 3rd grand duke of Tuscany, Ferdinando I, in 1599–1602. This villa was owned by the Medici family 1464-1738. This villa in at the center of a wide agricultural estate filled with farms & amp; fields & amp; woods. It was enlarged in 1571. A wide, fenced garden adjoins the villa. The garden Seems to be divided into flower beds, herb & amp; vegetable plants, & amp; orchards. By the Renaissance, artists began to paint secular scenes including landscapes, breaking away from the dominant religious art of medieval painters. Partly out of interest in the natural world & partly out of nostalgia for classical Greece & Rome, paintings became valued as symbolic & allegorical objects & as depictions of earthly success & status. The period in Europe was the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages & modern history. The relationship between man & nature was evolving as Francis Bacon (1561-1626) promoted man as "the minister & interpreter of nature." Images began to depict natural landscapes & more formal garden settings, where man was obviously using his intelligence, wealth, & power to shape & control the nature around him for sustenance & for pleasure. Thus, the Renaissance garden became as much as symbol of the owner's wealth & culture as his house or art collection.
