Discover Collezione Em
“IT’S A SHOWPLACE OF ART, DESIGN AND THE MAGIC OF ITALIAN CREATIVITY”
An authentic experience in Florence requires a full immersion into the beauty of Italian creativity.
Grand Hotel Minerva has been a hub of art for generations.
The building began as housing for the monks of Santa Maria Novella over seven-hundred-years ago and was home to various aristocrat Florentine families through the centuries. Hospitality came around in 1848, when the palazzo was converted into an “Inn” for travelers and finally transformed into a Grand Hotel in 1958, by two important Italian architects: Edoardo Detti and Maestro Carlo Scarpa.
In the fifties, when “modern innovation” was conceived as the destruction of the past, Grand Hotel Minerva was lucky enough to be put in the hands of an artist such as Carlo Scarpa. The Maestro, as he was known, deconstructed and transformed the hotel, leaving unaltered only a few rooms, with beautiful frescoes and original hand-painted ancient wooden beams that still exist today. While transforming the hotel, Scarpa created spaces and design details that would become a symbol of Italian modernist architecture.
CUSTOMIZED FRAME CARLO SCARPA, 1958, FOR GRAND HOTEL MINERVA AND UFFIZI GALLERIES
In time, the cultural soul of the hotel has bloomed into a vast collection that spaces from modernist design elements, to futuristic sketches, to ancient paintings and iconic sculptures. Around the rooms you will find many original pieces – some of them were born here, others have been brought in in some moment in time we have lost track of, others were hand-picked or donated. Different time periods, different social eras, every piece telling a part of the story.
Carlo Scarpa (Venice 1906 – Sendai 1978). Among the most important architects of the XX century. His architectural style is best known for the instinctive approach to structural elements and materials, combining traditional crafts with modern manufacturing processes.
Discover our private collection: Carlo Scarpa and his architecture and design pieces; Giuseppe Chiari, Florentine painter and composer, musician and visual artist exponent of the Fluxus movement, covering all the walls of our breakfast room; Sculptor and illustrator Emilio Greco, considered one of the greatest Italian Sculptors of the XX century; Carlo Carrà, symbol of Italian futurism and metaphysical art;
and so much more.
Take time to breath in the art and, if you like, use this map to start exploring.
Never lose a chance to appreciate art.
Travel through Italian creativity at Grand Hotel Minerva.
" An organization created to protect and value those historical hotels,
restaurants and cafes that have contributed to making the history of our country. "
