Florence becomes the most compelling creative retreat when you fall in step with the city’s pace. In Milan you might ‘get your hustle on’ and Rome leans into a meandering walk or Vespa ride, this city, the birthplace of the Renaissance, draws us more towards strolling. To standing still, in awe, at all its beauty. We like to think of it as ‘slow looking’, the antidote to a cultural quick fix, fitting in a multitude of must-sees that draws crowds. This approach to a creative retreat prizes contemplation, embracing the city by making time and learning craft alongside its own experts.
On Piazza della Repubblica, Hotel Savoy rubs shoulders with the Duomo and the Ponte Vecchio, good company for the start of your creative journey. A six-minute stroll from the bridge down Via Calimala to the south bank of the Arno and you’re at the Oltrano. Here, in historic workshops, or botteghe artigiane, the centuries-old techniques used by master craftsmen and art restorers are still seen. Creativity is found, alive and stitching: in leather and silks, from drapes and gloves to shoemakers and milliners. A joy to watch, there’s even more pleasure in taking part.
Notable stops include Antonio Gatto’s atelier, where each hat is handmade. “A hat by itself is incomplete,” he says. “It is the person who completes it, by wearing it a certain way, giving it a soul and a personality.” In a former chapel, the Stefano Bemer atelier is where the master shoemaker taught the actor Daniel Day Lewis. In 1999, for eight months, the Oscar winner, who lived in Florence, showed up every morning to sit at the workbench and learn the craft.
This thread of tuition stretches back through time, as does the practice of slow looking. Even though Florence is often love at first sight, with head-turners on every corner, the choice to focus attention on one thing of beauty at a time can deepen a relationship with its creativity. Time is well spent with the frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, a contemplative haven. In the High Renaissance, the chapel was the original art school, where Michelangelo and da Vinci spent weeks sketching Masaccio's figures, adapting his lighting and anatomy rules for their own works.
The creative journey continues long after the galleries close. Post passeggiata, near the Pitti Palace, there’s an evening workshop at the bookbinding studio Giulio Giannini e Figlio, once a noted destination of the Grand Tour-ers. The past seems so close as you take a seat here. The feel of mixing oil baths to marble paper is meditative, leaving you with a sheet of something special to take home, along with tales and techniques from your tutor, the sixth-generation master artisan Maria Giannini alongside her uncle, Guido Junior.
After admiring the work of so many magnificent artists, it's perhaps time to try your own hand: a private painting session with local artist Mario Minarini or an afternoon at at the Scuola del Cuoio, founded to teach a trade to the orphans of the Second World War, considering the craftsmanship invested in their bags, belts and wallets. Or turn to another of Florence's enduring crafts at AquaFlor, where, in the former stables of a palazzo, you'll blend your own fragrance under the guidance of master perfumer Nicola Bianchi, leaving with a deeply personal souvenir of the city.
Finish back at the hotel in Bar Artemisia, where Florence's artistic story still feels close. Named after Artemisia Gentileschi, a trailblazer of Baroque art, sink into a velvet banquet, and raise a toast to her contemporaries that seemingly dance across the walls, each sip an extension of your private audience with the past.
From slow looking and leathercraft to painting and perfumery, let Hotel Savoy curate your own creative journey through Florence, with exclusive access to the city's makers and centuries-old traditions.
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