Chiara is a gracious host with a beautiful space in the heart of the city. The garden is private and very picturesque, so you can appreciate it even in winter/inclement weather. There is a beautiful exposed brick wall and stylish decor, so it gives this place a bit of a modern feel even though the building is very old.
The age shows a bit with the infrastructure of the place. The toilet was not working when we arrived, so we had to have her send a maintenance person out the first morning. It was fixed, but we had to use public toilets for our first night. The shower is pretty small too--if you are a bigger person, the shower curtain may be brushing up against you and your head may be sticking above the showerhead.
The only real issue I had was that in my mad dash to leave, I left behind a bag with some fototessera photos and gourmet chocolates that were from a place exclusive to Florence (Vestri--highly recommend!). The latter were Christmas gifts for my family. It was regrettable, but I realized immediately as our train took off. I messaged Chiara to see if she could possibly mail the items from the post office--I offered reimburse her, of course. She replied that she looked along with her cleaning person, double checked, and the items were not there.
The thing is that are only two places the items could have ended up--and they weren't with me. Did the cleaning person snatch them? Did Chirara? I don't know, but after two days of my trip ending I'm still a bit upset about it. I spent about 35 Euro on the gifts.
Other than that, it was a great place to stay! There is a faster shortcut to the place through a small street from Firenze SMN; just look at the map she sends you. There was a lot of construction on the Via Nazionale and we much preferred the shortcut.