25hours Hotel Florence Piazza San Paolino, Florence
Where Dante’s Divine Comedy Becomes a Design Playground
Why DNA Hotels Loves It
● A wonderfully imaginative conversion of a former monastery and historic bank into one of Florence’s most playful design hotels.
● Milanese designer Paola Navone transforms Dante’s Divine Comedy into a rich interior narrative, balancing Heaven and Hell with wit, colour, and craftsmanship.
● A lively social destination where Tuscan dining, inventive cocktail culture, and authentic Florentine neighbourhood life come together.
Florence, Told Differently
Florence is often experienced through Renaissance masterpieces, grand palazzi, and perfectly preserved history. 25hours Hotel Piazza San Paolino offers another perspective. Located in the Santa Maria Novella district, just beyond the busiest tourist routes, the hotel connects two neighbourhoods where Florence still feels wonderfully lived-in. Antique dealers line Via de’ Fossi, while nearby Via Palazzuolo hums with cafés, trattorias, bars, and everyday city life. The Duomo remains within easy walking distance. But here, Florence feels less like a museum and more like a neighbourhood.
A Historic Building Reimagined
The hotel occupies an extraordinary collection of buildings that once served as both a monastery and the headquarters of Monte dei Pegni, Florence’s historic lending institution. Rather than treating history with solemn reverence, Milan-based designer Paola Navone approached it with curiosity and humour. Original architectural features have been carefully restored, while bold contemporary interventions introduce fresh energy throughout the property. Marble meets terracotta. Mosaic meets steel. Vintage furniture sits comfortably beside bespoke pieces designed specifically for the hotel. The result feels layered rather than themed. Playful rather than precious.
Paradise or Inferno?
Inspired by Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, every guestroom belongs to one of two worlds. Paradiso embraces soft whites, calming blues, rounded forms, and airy interiors that feel light and serene. Inferno tells a very different story. Rich reds, black detailing, velvet textures, theatrical murals, and dramatic lighting create rooms full of personality, temptation, and theatrical flair. Across 171 guestrooms—including the beautifully secluded Casetta del Giardino with its own private garden and swimming pool—each stay becomes part of the hotel’s larger narrative. Here, choosing a room becomes part of the experience itself.
A Celebration of Italian Living
The social heart of the hotel lies beneath its spectacular glass dome. San Paolino Restaurant celebrates regional Italian cooking with a particular love for Tuscany. Seasonal ingredients, generous plates, and recipes inspired by Paola Navone’s own travels create a dining experience that feels relaxed, convivial, and unmistakably Italian. During warmer months, the leafy courtyard becomes one of Florence’s most inviting outdoor dining spaces. Next door, Companion Bar carries the evening effortlessly forward. Serving beautifully executed Negronis, contemporary aperitivi, and inventive seasonal cocktails, it attracts both hotel guests and Florentines, creating exactly the kind of atmosphere every great city hotel hopes to achieve. There’s also Alimentari, the hotel’s neighbourhood grocery and bakery, where fresh panini, pastries, local wines, and Tuscan delicacies continue the sense that this is very much part of the local community.
Playfulness with Purpose
Like every 25hours hotel, humour is never far away. But beneath the playful storytelling lies remarkably thoughtful design. Navone’s interiors draw from theatre, cinema, travel, craftsmanship, and Italian design traditions to create spaces that constantly surprise without ever feeling chaotic. Every corridor reveals another unexpected object, another carefully chosen material, another visual joke hidden in plain sight. The hotel doesn’t imitate Florence’s history. It plays with it.
Why It Matters
Many hotels in Florence celebrate the city’s past. 25hours Hotel Piazza San Paolino starts a conversation with it instead. By combining literature, architecture, contemporary design, and genuine neighbourhood culture, it creates one of the city’s most original hospitality experiences. It’s theatrical without becoming superficial, imaginative without sacrificing comfort, and distinctly Florentine without relying on clichés. A hotel where Dante would probably smile. Even if he checked into Inferno.
