The Della Pera family, ancestors of the Peruzzi banking dynasty and prominent enough to be mentioned in Dante’s Paradiso, once owned this palazzo behind Florence’s Piazza della Signoria, in a district so tied to the city’s Greek merchant families that Dante referenced it too. The building had turned to hospitality by the 17th century, when it became the only hotel in Florence with running water and stables for horses, a rarity that set it apart from lesser inns.
By the mid-1800s it operated as the Hotel of the Shield of France, and its real moment came between 1865 and 1870, when Florence briefly served as the capital of the newly unified Kingdom of Italy. Members of parliament and senators used the hotel as an informal meeting place, among them Garibaldi and Cavour, and the hotel’s Sala del Parlamento still carries the circular frescoes from that era. It now serves as the breakfast room.