WANT TO LIVE IN FLORENCE OR TUSCANY?
We focus on mid to long term rentals (from one month to several years), buying and selling, and property management for absentee or investment owners. Our typical rental client ranges from a tourist couple or family that comes for 1 or 2 months, to post graduate students or professors who stay for a semester or longer, to professionals and expats who move for work or retirement for a number of years.
Here are a few facts that make us stand out from all the other agencies and websites:
- We have firsthand knowledge of the properties and their locations.
- We offer long term or mid term furnished and unfurnished properties as well as short–term holiday rentals.
- We deal directly with the owners on your behalf.
- We are licensed by the Florence Chamber of Commerce.
- We manage properties for absentee owners as well as for companies with large holdings.
- Our office is located in the centre of Florence should you need help or advice.
- In our office we speak English, Italian, German, and Mandarin Chinese.
- We have more than 25 years of experience with hundreds of satisfied clients.
Our principle aim when presenting each property is to show and describe it exactly as it is, because we have visited each and every one of them. The photos may not be the fanciest and the descriptions not the longest, but what you get is our honest evaluation of each property.
Our goal is to find the right property to meet your needs.
Why live in Florence and Tuscany ?
- Florence was officially founded in 59 BC and now has aprox. 380.000 habitants, and more than 10 million visitors each year.
- The historical center (a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1982) is very small and you can walk across it in aprox. 30 minutes here is a comparison with some major world cities:
- Almost a third of the world's art treasures reside in Florence, according to UNESCO. There are more UNESCO World Heritage sites in Tuscany than in Australia or South Africa and Argentina.
- In 1339 Florence became the first city in all of Europe with paved streets. Via Chiantigiana (Florence to Siena) is considered by many as the most beautiful road in all of Italy. You can reach both beaches and ski resorts with a 1.5 hour drive.
- Here are some historic maps of Florence:
- Tuscany has the oldest bank (Monte dei Paschi) and the Florentine gold coin (Fiorino) was the standard coinage throughout Europe, the first orphanage (Spedale degli Innocenti), the first state to abolish capital punishment and formed the first democratic constitution of the western civilization.
- The piano was invented in Florence by Bartolomeo Cristofori, and Opera was invented in the late 16th century. Calcio Storico Fiorentino ("Calcio in costume"), is regarded as the forerunner of soccer.
- Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flowers in Florence (il Duomo) was designed in 1296 to be the largest Roman Catholic church at that time. It is known for very first of its kind and the 'Octagonal' dome, the largest masonry dome in the world and the third largest Christian church. There were over 60 churches within Florence's city walls, approximately one church per every 300 feet.
- Chianti red wine originates from the region's Chianti Mountains and is thought to date to the 13th century. Carrara marble is exported in over 160 countries. Olive oil is one of the healthier products on Earth and Bernardo Buontalenti invented the modern Ice-cream in 1550.
- Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio were the first to use a language other than Latin, namely Tuscan which eventually became the recognised Italian language.
- Tuscany and Florence also also birth to: Amerigo Vespucci, Leonardo Da Vinci Galileo Galilei, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Leonardo Fibonacci, Donatello, Raffaello, Giotto, Cimabue, Benvenuto Cellini, Filippo Brunelleschi, Botticelli, Lisa Gherardini (Monnalisa), Niccolò Machiavelli, Antonio Meucci, Antonio da Verrazzano, Pinocchio, Andrea Bocelli, Cavalli, Gucci, Ferragamo, Prada, Emilio Pucci, Enrico Coveri, Antinori, Frescobaldi, Franco Zeffirelli, Florence Nightingale.
- Tchaikovsky - "Of all foreign cities, Florence become the one i most perfer. The more you live there the more you love it. There is something comfortable about it that feels like home".
- Stendhal - "I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves.' Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling."
- Henry James - "Everything about Florence seems to be colored with a mild violet, like diluted wine."
- Charles Dickens - "Among the four old bridges that span the river, the Ponte Vecchio, that bridge which is covered with the shops of jewelers and goldsmiths, is a most enchanting feature in the scene. The space of one house, in the center, being left open, the view beyond, is shown as in a frame; and that precious glimpse of sky, and water, and rich buildings, shining so quietly among the huddled roofs and gables on the bridge, is exquisite"
- Samuel Johnson - "A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see."
- D.H. Lawrence - "And that is ... how they are. So terribly physically all over one another. They pour themselves one over the other like so much melted butter over parsnips. They catch each other under the chin, with a tender caress of the hand, and they smile with sunny melting tenderness into each other's face."
- Orson Welles - "In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had 500 years of democracy and peace - and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
- Milton, Paradise Lost - "The broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening from the top of Fiesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe."
- William Wordsworth - "Under the shadow of a stately Pile,
The dome of Florence, pensive and alone,
Nor giving heed to aught that passed the while,
I stood, and gazed upon a marble stone,
The laurelled Dante's favourite seat. A throne."
- John Ruskin - "You will begin to wonder that human daring ever achieved anything so magnificent."
- Mark Twain - "This is the fairest picture on our planet, the most enchanting to look upon, the most satisfying to the eye and the spirit. To see the sun sink down, drowned on his pink and purple and golden floods, and overwhelm Florence with tides of color that make all the sharp lines dim and faint and turn the solid city to a city of dreams, is a sight to stir the coldest nature, and make a sympathetic one drunk with ecstasy."
- Marcel Proust - "And when I thought of Florence, it was like a miracle city embalmed and like a corolla, because it was called the city of lilies and its cathedral, St. Mary of the Flowers."
- Mark Twain - "The Creator made Italy from designs by Michelangelo."
WE ARE IN THE PRESS
Interviews with Corso Flaccomio about Tuscan real estate:
Suzanne Pitcher hosts book launch of THE MONSTER OF FLORENCE by Mario Spezi and Douglas Preston.
