Casa G Firenze

Carlo Lorenzini, who wrote Pinocchio as Collodi, once lived in this palazzo on Via Rondinelli, and it was the headquarters of Ginori's porcelain business. Then it stood empty for decades, until its owner, Filippo Montani della Fargna, and the architect Cecilia Pantaleo spent two years restoring it into fifteen rooms, open since 2022. They designed the lamps and the fabrics themselves. The way in is past rusticated stone and a carved wooden door, onto a black and white chequerboard floor. Inside are stucco ceilings, green velvet sofas under potted palms, and walls covered in chinoiserie, pagodas and a man leading a white horse among them.

Recommended for couples who mean to see Florence on foot from a palazzo between the Duomo and Santa Maria Novella, and for anyone travelling alone, for whom there is the Cozy, a single room of 12 square metres. The suites have frescoed ceilings, and the Master Suite is the one to ask for: 40 square metres on two levels, three arched windows, a bathroom in Carrara marble, and breakfast in the room, free on request. Otherwise breakfast is in the old kitchen or in a room behind a high glass wall onto the patio, with Ginori porcelain on show in both, and more of it for sale at the brand's flagship shop a few steps along the street. The patio is open by day only, and guests are asked to keep their voices down in it. There is no restaurant, and the palazzo is inside the city's restricted traffic zone, so drivers are sent to a car park nearby. Back in the lounge, the onyx honesty bar is open at any hour, a fair arrangement in the house of the man who gave Pinocchio his nose.