New York Time Style Magazine: A New Hotel Perched in the Hills of Florence

A Tuscan Hotel in a 16th-Century Former College

When the Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi completed the soaring cupola of the Duomo in Florence, Italy, in 1436, it was a feat of engineering that reshaped the city’s skyline. (It’s still the largest brick dome in existence.) From the surrounding hills, its red-tinged peak appears to hover above a sea of terra-cotta rooftops. Guests of Collegio alla Querce, the first Auberge Resorts Collection hotel in Italy, will have that vantage point from a 16th-century former college perched on the cusp of the Tuscan countryside. Designed in collaboration with the Florence-based studio ArchFlorence, the interiors pay homage to both the building’s scholastic past and its idyllic rural surroundings. The hotel’s restaurant, La Gamella — a refined trattoria named after the tin lunchboxes once carried by Florentine schoolchildren — occupies the college’s former dining hall, which in the 16th century was an open-air citrus garden. For aperitivi and nightcaps, there’s Bar Bertelli, dedicated to a former science teacher whose instruments are still on-site. In some guest rooms and suites not already adorned with original frescoes, walls were painted with sweeping landscapes, their hazy greens and ecrus a nod to the bucolic murals of Pompeian villas. The 83 rooms and suites are filled with custom furniture from Milan’s Paolo Castelli along with earth-toned ceramics by Studio Ceramico Giusti, which came from the weekly market in Piazza Santo Spirito, just a short walk down the hill.

Collegio alla Querce opens March 2. From about $1,600 a night, aubergeresorts.com.