Santa Maria Novella Shops

The original Santa Maria Novella apothecary (purported to be the oldest pharmacy in the world, founded by Dominican monks in the thirteenth century), is finished with ornate, frescoed ceilings and eighteenth-century furniture. But insanely beautiful interiors aside, you’re here for the products. The shop's shelves are stocked with delicate bottles of the most heavenly scented fragrance, body oils, and soaps that will dress up even the most banal bathroom. It also carries our favorite rose water facial mist and a selection of tinctures and smelling salts (it is an apothecary after all). A recent addition is the pretty tea room out back for an afternoon shopping break.

In the same artisanal league as Loretta Caponi’s silks and linens, Richard Ginori’s dinnerware is fit for dinner with a royal family or at least a dozen aristocrats. The delicately painted Florentine porcelain plates, cups, saucers, and serving dishes are displayed like works of art throughout the space. The business was run by the Ginori family from its inception in 1735 until the early 1920s, and the quality of each piece is still exceptional all these years later.