Hotel Savoy

The square is the first thing a guest sees. Piazza della Repubblica, with its triumphal arch and its cafés, sits at the exact centre of Florence, on the site of the Roman forum, and the Hotel Savoy occupies one of its corners. The building went up in 1893, when the medieval market quarter was cleared and the square laid out as the showpiece of the new Italian capital's former ambitions. The hotel has kept the name ever since.

History

For most of the twentieth century the Savoy was the grand hotel of the city centre, the address for diplomats, buyers at the leather and textile fairs, and families on the Italian tour. It passed through several owners and lost some of its shine in the post-war decades. In 2000 Sir Rocco Forte bought the house and reopened it after a full restoration, his first property in Italy. His sister Olga Polizzi, who directs design for the group, has reworked the interiors twice since, most recently in the 2010s, stripping out the heavy fabrics of the first scheme in favour of lighter colours and references to Florentine craft.

Architecture and design

The exterior is late nineteenth-century Florentine, in the same stone and stucco language as the rest of the square. Inside, Polizzi's scheme uses pale walls, parquet and marble, and a palette borrowed from the city: terracotta, grey-green, the blue of the Arno in winter. Art is contemporary, much of it by Italian artists, and there are nods to the fashion history of the city in the public rooms. The lobby opens on to the square through tall windows, so the hotel feels part of the piazza rather than a retreat from it.

Rooms and suites

The house has around eighty rooms and suites spread over five floors. The quietest look into the inner courtyard; the best look out over the square or, from the upper floors, across the rooftops to the cathedral. The signature suites on the top floor have terraces, and from them the dome, Giotto's campanile and the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio are all in view at once. Bathrooms are in Italian marble. Families are well catered for, which is unusual in a Florentine palazzo hotel, with connecting rooms and a children's programme run across the Rocco Forte group.

Dining

Irene is the hotel's restaurant, opened in 2015 and spilling on to the square under awnings. It is a bistro in the Florentine manner rather than a formal dining room: Tuscan dishes, grilled meat, pasta, vegetables from the surrounding countryside, and a menu overseen by Fulvio Pierangelini, the Rocco Forte group's creative director of food. The bar inside serves breakfast, afternoon tea and cocktails and is used by Florentines as much as by residents.

Wellness

There is a small fitness room and a treatment room for in-room or in-house massages, but no full spa and no pool. Guests who want more are directed to the group's sister property, Villa Igiea, or to the hills around the city.

Weddings and events

The Savoy hosts small weddings and private dinners rather than large receptions. Its meeting rooms suit boards, fashion-house presentations and launches for a few dozen people; the terrace suites are used for cocktail receptions with the Duomo as backdrop. Civil ceremonies for foreign couples take place at the nearby Palazzo Vecchio, with the celebration dinner at Irene or in a private room.

Location

Few hotels in Florence are as central. The Duomo is two streets north, the Uffizi and Ponte Vecchio five minutes south on foot, and the shops of Via de' Tornabuoni and Via Roma begin at the corner of the square. Santa Maria Novella station is a ten-minute walk, which matters in a city where cars are kept out of the historic centre. Florence airport at Peretola is twenty minutes by taxi or tram. As a luxury hotel in Florence it trades on position above all else: a guest can see most of the Renaissance city without ever using a vehicle.