Family Home, Florence
Credits:
Project by: Costanza Bacci
Photos by: Pietro Savorelli
Project by: Costanza Bacci
Photos by: Pietro Savorelli
Renaissance heritage and contemporary design coexist in perfect balance within a luxurious family home located just a few steps from the Basilica of Santa Croce.
The home extends across three levels within Palazzo Doni, a fifteenth-century palace built to celebrate the marriage of Agnolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi. It was here that Raphael stayed while painting the couple’s portraits, and Michelangelo worked on the celebrated Doni Tondo, now housed in the Uffizi Galleries.
The building’s extraordinary artistic and historical legacy – having also served in recent decades as the home, studio and gallery of sculptors Roberto Fallani and Paola Crema – did not intimidate architect Costanza Bacci (daughter of the current owner), who has signed her debut project with a remarkably clear stylistic vision and a surprising design audacity.
Embracing an aesthetic of reduction so radical as to reveal an unexpected “luxury brutalism”, Bacci preserved traces of the building’s memory – including the soaring Renaissance columns in the living area and the exposed stonework of the courtyards – while deliberately avoiding any historical narrative built around references to the past.
Instead, by removing the layers accumulated throughout the building’s long history, she restored it to the essential purity of its original forms, whose contemporary character emerges with striking clarity.
From this renewed sense of rigour, she has orchestrated a sophisticated visual dialogue based on a series of powerful dualities: solids and voids; the dazzling brightness of the outdoor green spaces and the intimate atmosphere of the interiors; the simplicity of forms and the refined richness of the materials; the neutral palette of the furnishings and the unexpected accents of colour that enliven them; the high-tech sophistication of the cinema room and the pietra serena stone of the swimming pool.
Within this new minimalist language, the quality of materials and craftsmanship takes centre stage, entrusted to highly skilled artisans with long-standing traditions and accompanied by meticulous attention to every detail.
This design philosophy is equally evident throughout the six bathrooms, where dark walls – clad in travertine or enriched by the skilful layering of multiple plaster finishes – are illuminated by the pure white Blues sanitaryware, bespoke Devon&Devon console units paired with Tribeca and Dandy taps, and the freestanding Holiday bathtub, whose Art Déco-inspired elegance is given pride of place in the spacious master bathroom.
The home extends across three levels within Palazzo Doni, a fifteenth-century palace built to celebrate the marriage of Agnolo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi. It was here that Raphael stayed while painting the couple’s portraits, and Michelangelo worked on the celebrated Doni Tondo, now housed in the Uffizi Galleries.
The building’s extraordinary artistic and historical legacy – having also served in recent decades as the home, studio and gallery of sculptors Roberto Fallani and Paola Crema – did not intimidate architect Costanza Bacci (daughter of the current owner), who has signed her debut project with a remarkably clear stylistic vision and a surprising design audacity.
Embracing an aesthetic of reduction so radical as to reveal an unexpected “luxury brutalism”, Bacci preserved traces of the building’s memory – including the soaring Renaissance columns in the living area and the exposed stonework of the courtyards – while deliberately avoiding any historical narrative built around references to the past.
Instead, by removing the layers accumulated throughout the building’s long history, she restored it to the essential purity of its original forms, whose contemporary character emerges with striking clarity.
From this renewed sense of rigour, she has orchestrated a sophisticated visual dialogue based on a series of powerful dualities: solids and voids; the dazzling brightness of the outdoor green spaces and the intimate atmosphere of the interiors; the simplicity of forms and the refined richness of the materials; the neutral palette of the furnishings and the unexpected accents of colour that enliven them; the high-tech sophistication of the cinema room and the pietra serena stone of the swimming pool.
Within this new minimalist language, the quality of materials and craftsmanship takes centre stage, entrusted to highly skilled artisans with long-standing traditions and accompanied by meticulous attention to every detail.
This design philosophy is equally evident throughout the six bathrooms, where dark walls – clad in travertine or enriched by the skilful layering of multiple plaster finishes – are illuminated by the pure white Blues sanitaryware, bespoke Devon&Devon console units paired with Tribeca and Dandy taps, and the freestanding Holiday bathtub, whose Art Déco-inspired elegance is given pride of place in the spacious master bathroom.
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