Collegio alla Querce

A Reborn Renaissance Haven in the Hills Above Florence - Once a 16th-century educational academy perched on the hills of Fiesole, Collegio alla Querce reemerges as a sanctuary of cultivated elegance under the refined eye of Auberge Resorts Collection. Rooted in Tuscan grandeur yet reimagined through the lens of contemporary luxury, this estate of shaded cloisters, frescoed halls, and manicured gardens tells a new story—one where history breathes slowly, and every detail whispers of place.

The Architecture: A Noble Dialogue Between Past and Present

The hotel’s heritage is palpable: terracotta-tiled roofs, arched porticoes, and creamy pietra serena facades rise from the olive-dotted hills like a cinematic vision of the Italian Renaissance. Once a place of knowledge and contemplation, the collegio has been meticulously transformed into a residence of refined quietude.

Spaces unfold like chapters in a novel: cloisters bathed in golden light, hallways that echo with centuries of learning, salons where frescoes emerge from walls like forgotten poems. Yet despite the weight of history, the design is light and fluid. Vaulted ceilings, raw linen drapes, and custom furnishings in oak and bronze frame each room in understated luxury. The overall effect is one of timelessness—neither frozen in the past nor chasing trends.

Suites: Silence, Craft and Perspective

Each suite is an invitation to pause. Some retain original frescoes—florals curling across ceilings, saints gazing from corners—while others lean into a minimalist Tuscan palette: stone, chalk, olive wood, and sun-bleached ivory.

Large windows frame vignettes of the surrounding hills, with cypress trees slicing through sky and distant rooftops glinting in the light. Bathrooms are carved in marble and travertine, serene and tactile, with deep soaking tubs and garden views. This is not hotel design as spectacle, it is spatial poetry. Every element earns its place.

The Gardens: Geometry and Wilderness

The estate spills out into a series of terraced gardens, where Renaissance formality dissolves into olive groves and wild herbs. Gravel paths lead to hidden fountains and citrus courtyards. Box hedges cast soft shadows in the morning light; lavender borders release scent with every step.

There is an ancient rhythm to the land here—one that invites guests to slow down, to wander without purpose. In spring, the wisteria tunnels are a dreamlike violet haze; in autumn, the air carries the crispness of ripe figs and distant woodsmoke.

Culinary: Earth, Fire, and Intuition

Dining at Collegio alla Querce is a ritual of territory and transformation. The executive chef reinterprets Tuscan cucina povera with elegant restraint: handmade pici with wild fennel and lemon zest; slow-roasted pigeon with juniper; ricotta cloud-light and just warm from the fire.

The ingredients speak of the land—olive oil from trees just beyond the terrace, produce from biodynamic gardens, wines from nearby estates. Meals unfold in vaulted dining rooms, on candlelit terraces, or beside an open fire in the former library.

There’s no rush. Just flavour, memory, and place—anchored in simplicity.

Wellness in the Italian Way The spa, nestled in a converted cloister, adopts a quiet, elemental ethos. Treatments incorporate Tuscan botanicals, thermal rituals, and herbal infusions gathered from the grounds. Wellness here is not clinical - it is slow, sensorial, and deeply local.

A Place That Teaches You How to Stay

Collegio alla Querce doesn’t shout. It listens. It holds centuries of stories between its walls and invites each guest to find their own rhythm within them.

This is not just a hotel, it’s a threshold between eras, between stillness and stimulus, between the city’s artful intensity and the countryside’s ancient calm.

To stay here is to remember how to dwell well - with purpose, presence, and a sense of beauty that lingers long after departure.

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