In October 1868 the Barnabite Fathers opened a boarding school on the hill below Fiesole with a single pupil. Two years later they installed a geodynamic observatory, and the seismic research carried out there, much of it by the Barnabite scientist Timoteo Bertelli, contributed to the development of seismology. Collegio alla Querce taught for well over a century. It reopened in March 2025 as a hotel run by Auberge Collection, its first in Italy, and the rooms of the school now hold weddings: vows in the restored chapel or on a garden lawn above Florence, dinner in the old theatre, drinks in the headmaster’s office.
The college of the oaks
The hotel occupies three adjacent sixteenth century buildings. They began as the home of a noble family, who covered the walls in frescoes, and many of those paintings survive. The name means the college of the oaks, after the trees that still shade the grounds.
The school was founded as a branch of the Barnabites’ Carlo Alberto college at Moncalieri, and among its later pupils was Amedeo of Savoy-Aosta, born in Florence in 1943 into the House of Savoy. Bertelli lived and worked at the college until his death in 1905, and with Michele Stefano de Rossi he devised a tromometer, an instrument for measuring small tremors of the ground. Seismic observation continued until the early 1930s. The library, begun with the college in 1868, was looked after for more than forty years by another Barnabite, the bibliographer Giuseppe Boffito, who also directed the observatory. When the school closed, the library’s collections were divided among Florentine institutions and the buildings stood empty.
A restoration that kept the school
The owner is Analjit Singh, founder of the Leeu Collection, and Auberge runs the hotel. The architecture was handled by Esteva i Esteva, a Spanish practice led by a father and son, and the interiors by the Florentine studio ArchFlorence, which turned former classrooms into suites. The landscape designer Franchesca Watson restored the terraced gardens. Stonework, frescoes and coffered ceilings were kept, and so were the chapel and the theatre, down to the theatre’s original balcony seats. At the inauguration, former pupils came back for a ceremony in the restored grounds. The Michelin Guide has since given the hotel three Michelin Keys, its rating for an extraordinary stay.
Vows in the chapel or on the Terrazza dell’Arco
There are two settings for the ceremony. La Cappella, the school chapel, has been restored with its hand carved coffered ceilings and terrazzo floors, and it suits a ceremony or a blessing indoors. Outdoors, the Terrazza dell’Arco is the event lawn of the gardens: private, open to the Tuscan hills and the city, large enough to take a tent, and able to seat up to 150 guests for a ceremony.
Before the ceremony, Sala Noce is the room for getting ready. It is full of light, its walls are covered with a design drawn from Renaissance gardens, and its windows look into the inner courtyards.
Dinner in the school theatre
Il Teatro was the college’s theatre and still has its original stage workings, hand painted frescoes, a raised stage and a mezzanine balcony that runs round the room.
For a wedding it is laid for a banquet by candlelight among olive trees, and the stage suits live music or a DJ.
Il Teatro and Sala Dorati, a tall and ornate hall, each seat up to 90 guests for dinner.
For a much smaller table, the Refettorio is a private dining room decorated like a room in a country palazzo, beside the interior gardens and looking onto them.
Catering is in house. The hotel’s own events team plans the menus, music, flowers and running order with each couple, and the kitchens are led by the executive chef, Nicola Zamperetti, whose cooking takes Tuscan dishes in a modern direction. The main restaurant, La Gamella, takes its name from the tin lunch boxes Florentine schoolchildren once carried, and it sits in the college’s old dining hall, which in the sixteenth century was an open citrus garden. Il Conservatorio, a glass garden room, serves coffee and light dishes through the day, and in season Il Bosco serves lunch beside the pool among the olive trees.
Bar Bertelli, in the headmaster’s office
The bar occupies what was the headmaster’s office, and it is dedicated to a former science teacher whose instruments are still kept at the college. Portraits of the Principi degli Studi, the school’s top pupils, line the ceilings, and the walls hold books and curious objects from the building’s years as a school and a museum. The cocktails borrow from the chemistry laboratory, a cigar room in a Turkish style opens off the bar with a balcony looking towards the centre of Florence, and in the evenings magicians and mentalists perform. It suits a welcome drink on the eve of the wedding.
Taking the whole college
The college can be reserved in its entirety. A buyout leaves no other guests in residence and gives the wedding party the gardens, the salons and Il Teatro on its own timetable, with all 83 rooms and suites for family and friends.
Guest rooms have inlaid hardwood floors and tall windows. The grand suites add coffered wooden ceilings, hand painted murals, freestanding baths and balconies over the gardens or the city, and a stay in one includes a return transfer from the airport or the railway station. Suites have personal wine cellars, curated in partnership with Gaja. The largest suite, Residenza la Quercia, is part of the seven bedroom Palazzo Moderno, which can be booked on its own, and has two living rooms, a rooftop terrace and a private hot tub: a natural base for the couple and their closest family. The Aelia spa uses Furtuna Skin products, made from olives and botanicals grown in Sicily, and the outdoor pool opens from mid April to the end of September.
Florence below, Fiesole above
The college stands at Via delle Forbici in the Le Cure district, at the end of a drive lined with cypresses, about 20 minutes by car from the Duomo and 30 from Florence Airport. A complimentary shuttle runs into the centre from half past nine in the morning to half past nine at night, so guests staying for the weekend can spend a day in the city without hiring cars. Above the college is Fiesole, founded by the Etruscans and long a retreat for Florentine families, and the hotel arranges pasta classes, private visits to the Accademia Gallery after hours and days out in Chianti. Wedding prices are given on enquiry, according to the season and the scale of the celebration.
For more Florence weddings, read our Edits on The St. Regis Florence and Villa Mangiacane, browse wedding venues in Florence or open the Tuscany Wedding Atlas.
Ninety at table, or a tent on the lawn
The decision that shapes a wedding here is the size of the guest list. Up to 90, dinner can stay inside the old school, beneath the balcony of Il Teatro or under the tall ceilings of Sala Dorati. Beyond that, the celebration moves out onto the Terrazza dell’Arco, which takes up to 150, is large enough for a tent and has Florence below. Read the Collegio alla Querce profile and check your date.
