Palazzo Portinari Salviati

Dante was nine, he said, and Beatrice a few months younger, when his father took him to a May Day party at the Portinari house on Via del Corso. She died at twenty-five, and he gathered his poems to her into the Vita Nuova. The house went on to grander owners. The Salviati bought it in 1546, and a Salviati daughter, Maria, was mother to Cosimo I de' Medici, who now stands in marble in the courtyard named after him. In the Emperors' Courtyard, Alessandro Allori painted Odysseus and Hercules in 1575 and 1576; upstairs, Tommaso Gherardini gave the gallery an Olympus in 1783. The Royal Suite takes that whole floor, gods included: 600 square metres for up to ten, and the largest suite in Italy by the hotel's own reckoning.

Recommended for couples who want to sleep inside the Renaissance. The Duomo is about 200 metres away, the Uffizi under half a kilometre, and the hotel arranges private evening tours of both the Uffizi and the Accademia once the public has gone. Families can take the Deluxe Suite, or the Penthouse Galileo, which sleeps six and has the Duomo in view and a panoramic terrace. The spa they will have to leave to the over-16s. It is in the vaults: a pool kept at 34°C, a sauna at 90°C, and two hours a day included, booked ahead, which is about as long as anyone wants at 34°C. Dinner is at ATTO di Vito Mollica, with its Michelin star, under Allori's heroes. The Salviati kept the house for 222 years and the Bank of Tuscany for 146; the hotel, open since 2022, has some catching up to do.