The James Firenze — A New Design Treasure for Florence
- Andrew C.
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Behind Florence’s Renaissance splendor and theatrical façades, there are places that feel like the hidden chapter of a city: a place so intensely imagined, so intimately crafted, that stepping inside feels like crossing into a more private, more poetic version of Florence. The James Firenze is exactly that, a sensual, design-charged reinterpretation of the city’s Renaissance soul through the eyes of an aesthete who understands that luxury is not abundance, but authorship.
Housed within the former convent, just steps from the Duomo yet sheltered from its noise and spectacle, the hotel carries the spiritual hush of its monastic origins. But under the vision of architect and collector James Cavagnari, that quiet heritage has been transformed into something theatrical, intimate, and unmistakably contemporary. A five-year restoration — at times challenging, always meticulous — has given Florence one of its most soulful new boutique addresses: a place where frescoes drift above velvet armchairs, winter gardens glow like greenhouses of memory, and cocktails arrive with a wink, balanced on bronze boars and miniature domes.
This is a Florentine fever dream of art, memory & modern grandeur.
A Dialogue Between Monastic Heritage & Contemporary Imagination
Although the exterior of the building blends seamlessly into its quiet residential neighborhood, the atmosphere shifts the minute you step inside. Vaulted ceilings washed in floral frescoes soften the inherited hush of the former monastery. Arched corridors elongate the light. Stone floors echo faintly with the building’s centuries-old rhythm. Cavagnari doesn’t fight the architecture — he listens to it. And then he composes around it.
His design language is a conversation of eras; contemporary pieces mingle with relics; fantasy plays with restraint and meticulous curation.
Many of the upholstered pieces throughout the hotel were designed by Cavagnari himself and built by master artisan Paolo Nesi. They sit alongside rare prototypes, pieces never released to market, sourced from top Italian ateliers, reinterpretations of classic forms that lend the spaces an undercurrent of rarity and creative experimentation.
Underfoot, Persian rugs by artist Moji have been transformed with acids and natural pigments, their antique patterns dissolved into contemporary color fields. They feel like soft frescoes you step across. Walls in the newer wing are lined with Florentine raffia by Bruno Targioni, a woven straw once reserved for artisan handbags, now elevated into architectural texture. It is Cavagnari’s tribute to local craft: tactile, warm, completely unexpected.
Even the lighting is sculpted into narrative: Murano glass pendants illuminate the arches; Patrizia Garganti chandeliers lend dramatic flourish; Classic lamp forms reinterpreted with Lyria fabric shades glow like soft, theatrical gestures.
And in a flourish of irony, a 1900s leather bag-maker’s cabinet becomes a wardrobe; 19th-century garden curtains find their way into bedrooms; and iconic Bonacina outdoor chairs appear indoors, softened by lush greenery that rests against the monastery’s original bones.
From an architectural standpoint, building the rooftop terrace with its 360-degree view was perhaps the most challenging, nearly impossible, and almost forbidden. Cavagnari spent months negotiating with UNESCO, determined to carve out this small terrace atop the historic roofline.
The staircase itself became the project’s greatest test. But the result is worth every discussion: a quiet terrace that opens to the sky above a terracotta ocean of rooftops. The Duomo rises luminous in the distance. Spires and tiled roofs stretch toward the horizon. The intimate setting is not a rooftop meant for spectacle or crowds; it is meant for perspective, for watching the city breathe, for understanding its scale, for slipping into its rhythm.
When you take in every piece together, nothing here is random, nothing is generic. Everything is chosen with humor, reverence, or both.
Instead of mimicking Florence, The James Firenze translates it in its own voice.
The Rooms — Different Intimate Worlds, Different Ways of Dreaming
The hotel’s rooms are not iterations of a template; they are emotional compositions. Cavagnari treats each one as its own atmosphere, its own small universe.
The Court Suite is perhaps the most transportive. A secret courtyard unfolds just beyond the window, with terracotta walls, emerald potted greens, and a hush of stillness that feels like being tucked inside a luxury safari tent. Morning light enters softly, sliding across clay-toned textures. It is Florence at its most meditative, more cloister than city.
The JC Suite is the most iconic romantic dream. Cabana-style structures rise around the bed, fabrics draped like Mediterranean summers. Original frescoes drift above in pale narratives, echoed by the Fornasetti wallpaper inside the wardrobe. Sculptural lamps and curated objects add touches of whimsy and gravity. The room feels like a chapter from an old Florentine novel, reimagined through a modern lens.
And the Florence Suite, wrapped in Renaissance blue, opens onto a private balcony with rooftops and church spires unfolding like a cinematic panorama. Inside, a built-in daybed carved into the wall becomes the room’s soul — a quiet refuge for reading, writing, or simply watching the light change.
Each room feels personal, tactile, lived-in, a feast for the eyes, a comfort to the skin. Here, luxury is pure intimacy.
The 1564 Lounge Bar & The James Restaurant
Descending into the 1564 Lounge Bar feels like entering a nocturnal salon from many different eras where Florence relaxes her posture and exhales. The room glows with velvet, brass, and soft, fringed lamps. Reflections ripple across polished tables; conversations settle into honeyed tones around the fireplace.
Then come the cocktails, theatrical, whimsical, never pretentious. The Chianti Martini, served atop a miniature bronze wild boar, nods to Florence’s beloved Porcellino statue. It may look playful, but the drink is serious: cold, precise, perfectly balanced. The First Reaction Shock cocktail, served from a sculptural miniature of Brunelleschi’s Duomo dome and released under a mist of smoke, feels refreshing, architectural, and quietly poetic. And then there is the full aperitivo presentation, a birdcage-like display of finger foods and snacks that feels more like a small performance than a service gesture.
This is far beyond standard mixology; it is a full-on choreography, and a brilliant invitation into the city’s myth and humor. 1564 Bar has become Florence’s new mixology playground
Cavagnari calls The James Restaurant his “Winter Garden,” inspired by a childhood refuge, a small shack he built for himself, a private world of imagination. Here, that memory becomes a sunlit greenhouse reinterpreted for modern Florence. Inside this charming sanctuary, terracotta walls radiate warmth, woven red-and-ivory chairs echo local craft traditions, greenery softens the structure, and patterns whisper of distant gardens and southern summers.
Meals unfold gently under the supervision of Chef Axel Caldani. Breakfast feels ceremonial with tiny pastries, sorbet-toned juices, and state-of-the-art pancakes crowned with cream and candied nuts. At dinner, the Bottoni pasta expresses the restaurant’s ethos: delicately filled, comforting yet inventive, perfectly balanced between Tuscan and Mediterranean flavors.
The James Restaurant is deeply affectionate, warm, and thoughtful, a room built for savoring, not staging.
A New Contemporary Classic in the Making
The James Firenze is not just another boutique hotel; it is a narrative space, authored with clarity, imagination, and a deep understanding of Florence’s emotional and architectural heritage.
Its monastic past is visible but softened; Its contemporary interventions are crafted, never mass-manufactured; Its atmosphere is curated but never loses its temperature. Cavagnari and Mandredi Hotels team have together created a place where design is about storytelling; where history is allowed to speak; where luxury is the resonance.
Florence has gained something rare, a hotel with soul, wit, memory, and identity.
A new design treasure for the city, and one of the most evocative boutique stays we’ve experienced in Italy.
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