Palazzo Sogni, Florence

Via de' Martelli is not a street most people linger on. It runs the short, crowded distance between the Duomo and San Lorenzo, a channel of tour groups, scooters and gelato queues that Florentines tend to walk down quickly with their heads lowered. This makes it all the more surprising that behind one of its stone façades sits a 16th-century nymphaeum with a carved fountain attributed to Baccio Bandinelli, the sculptor who spent much of his career trying, and mostly failing, to outshine Michelangelo.

That fountain is now the centrepiece of Palazzo Sogni, a 30-room hotel which opened in October 2026 in a wing of what was once Palazzo Testa, built by the Martelli family at the height of the Renaissance. The name means palace of dreams, and the owners have taken the idea literally, which will delight some guests and make others reach for a stiff drink. Either way, the building itself deserves the attention.

What the restorers found

The most interesting part of the story is what lay under the paint. A conservation team linked to the Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, coordinated by Francesca Marsini, worked slowly through the later layers of decoration, then cleaning and consolidating what was underneath. They uncovered painted cycles running from the 17th century to the early 19th, including work by Luigi Catani, the Florentine painter who also decorated rooms at Palazzo Pitti, and by his contemporary Antonio Marini, both among the most respected artists of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.

Those frescoes have set the tone for everything else. The palette of the rooms, powder blue, sage green, ivory and soft pink with touches of brass, was drawn directly from the restored ceilings, and it gives the interiors a coherence that so many heritage hotels lack, where the old building and the new furniture seem barely on speaking terms.

The rooms at Palazzo Sogni

The 30 rooms and suites were designed by the sisters Elena and Giulia Sella with the hotel's founder, Andrea Cecchi. They have leaned heavily on Florentine craft. The signature fabric, a floral and butterfly pattern woven in a silk-based jacquard by Alessandro Bini, needed its own loom set-up to get the relief right, and it appears alongside iridescent velvets and embroidered silks. Furniture was made to order by local artisans, bathrooms are clad in onyx so that they glow faintly in lamplight, linens come from Rivolta Carmignani and the toiletries from Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella, the old pharmacy a few streets away.

Then there is the brass button on the wall marked Press for Champagne. It is a gimmick, of course, borrowed from the Bob Bob Ricard school of hospitality, but I confess I would press it at least once, and probably twice.

Eating and drinking

The main restaurant, Segreto, looks onto the courtyard garden and the fountain, and its menu has been written by Tommaso Querini with the Michelin-starred chef Vito Mollica. Querini was previously chef at Luca's by Paulo Airaudo, which won its own star in 2025, so this is a serious kitchen rather than a hotel dining room going through the motions. The cooking is contemporary Italian built on luxury produce, caviar, white truffle, langoustines and porcini, and the dish I most want to try is the Uovo Segreto, an egg with potato and leek foam finished with fresh truffle in season. A cauliflower risotto with almond ragù sounds like the sort of quietly clever dish that tells you a lot about a chef.

The food is served on a service made by Ginori 1735, whose Antico Doccia line has been reworked in the hotel's powder blue and hand-decorated with the same butterflies as the fabrics. It is the kind of detail most guests will never notice, and the ones who do will love it.

Upstairs, the Sotto le Stelle rooftop looks straight at Brunelleschi's dome, which from this close fills the sky, and there will be wine tastings, cocktails and live cooking up there. Afternoon tea is served in the Sala della Musica, a frescoed salon with its own terrace, and the Wine Library, with a hidden vault for the rarest bottles, is set up for private tastings with some of Tuscany's old winemaking families.

The rest of the stay

The spa is small, as it would have to be in a building like this, with a Turkish bath, treatment rooms finished in onyx and marble and products from Biologique Recherche, which is a sign that someone involved takes facials seriously. The concierge team can arrange private visits to galleries, artisan workshops and the Ginori porcelain works, a boat trip on the Arno at sunset, or a helicopter over the vineyards of Chianti.

Is it worth it?

Florence has no shortage of handsome hotels in old palaces, and a newcomer has to offer something beyond frescoes and a view of the dome. What Palazzo Sogni has is intimacy, with 30 rooms where the city's grand hotels have many more, and a genuinely good restaurant team. The dreamy theme will not be to everyone's taste, and the press materials lay it on rather thickly, but the restoration is real, the craftsmanship is local and the fountain alone is a reason to come. For a couple who want to be in the middle of Florence and feel looked after, I suspect it will be one of the most talked-about new addresses in the city this winter.

At a glance: opened October 2026 · 30 rooms and suites · Segreto restaurant, Sotto le Stelle rooftop, Wine Library, spa · Via de' Martelli 4, a minute's walk from the Duomo · reservations@palazzosogni.com, +39 055 994 6700