Leone Blu Suites

Traditional and palatial on the outside; full of elegant antiques and avant-garde design inside, this is an immaculately maintained piece of history with a modern idiosyncrasy in the very heart of Florence.

Now Baroness Maria Teresa Ricasoli Firdolfi has opened her piano nobile to paying guests, creating a stylish boutique bolthole named after the blue lion on the family crest. The nine suites may salute her illustrious ancestors and be scattered with heirlooms, but this is no museum piece.