Bodyguard in Florence
Can you hire a bodyguard in Florence?
Yes. Italian private security law licenses the guarding of property, not the protection of people: there is no bodyguard licence in Italy, which is exactly why the provider matters. Algoz arranges a vetted Italian close protection officer who meets you inside Florence or Pisa airport or on the ramp at the private terminal, a security driver who holds the permits to enter the restricted centre, and the same team stays with you through the hotel, the museums, the Via de’ Tornabuoni and the evening. Send your dates and your hotel or villa and a confidential proposal follows within 24 hours, with the officer profile and the final rate, and no obligation attached.
What people ask before enquiring.
Is it legal?
Yes. Italian law licenses the guarding of property, not people, and, as Italian legal commentary reads it, a private officer works with a citizen’s powers. What matters is who employs the officer and answers for the detail, and Algoz confirms that in writing.
What it costs
Priced to the profile and the itinerary. Florence is a small city with a dense calendar, and most briefs are met by one officer and a security driver with the permits for the centre. The final rate comes with the proposal; an idea of day rates is in the FAQ below.
How fast
Plan on seven days. Vetting the brief, releasing the right officer and completing the advance work takes that long. Under 48 hours means additional fees and no guarantee of cover.
Armed or unarmed
Florence details run unarmed. Armed protection of a client is almost never possible in Italy: any request needs a minimum 30-day lead, may be refused and is never guaranteed. A skilled unarmed officer and a security driver are the right answer for almost every itinerary here.
Where we cover
Florence first: the historic centre, the Oltrarno, Fiesole and the hills. Then Chianti, Siena and San Gimignano, Lucca and Pisa, Forte dei Marmi and the Versilia coast, and the rest of Tuscany, with the same contact and the same brief.
Who you get
Vetted Italian officers, many from the Carabinieri, the Polizia and the armed forces, working in Italian and English. Coordination in Japanese, Russian, Arabic and French is available; Japanese-speaking officers can be requested with notice but are never guaranteed, and the written day plan is provided in your language on request.
A small city that the whole world walks through.
Florence is one of the most visited cities on earth and one of the smallest to carry that weight: the Duomo, the Uffizi, the Ponte Vecchio, the Accademia and the Palazzo Pitti stand within a few hundred metres of each other, inside a historic centre that is largely closed to traffic and permanently full. The Via de’ Tornabuoni holds the Florentine houses and the great Italian names in one short street, the Oltrarno holds the artisans and the restaurants, the hills of Fiesole and the Chianti hold the villas, and twice a year the Fortezza da Basso holds Pitti Uomo and the fashion industry with it. It is a safe city by any standard, with a particular set of problems: pickpockets who work the crowds of the Duomo and the station as a profession, a restricted traffic zone that a vehicle cannot enter without a permit, and a density of visible wealth, in jewellery, in art and in the people who come to buy both, that is read at a glance on every bridge.
Algoz coordinates bodyguard services in Florence through vetted Italian operators with genuine local knowledge: officers who know which gate of the restricted zone a permitted vehicle may use and at what hour, how the Uffizi queue is avoided rather than endured, which Tornabuoni house has a private salon, how Pitti reorganises the city for a week and what the Calcio Storico does to Santa Croce in June. Our clients are families from Japan, the United States and the Gulf on the Renaissance itinerary, collectors and buyers in the city for the art and the jewellers, executives and exhibitors for Pitti, owners of a villa in the hills, recognisable people who want the Uffizi without the attention, and the assistants and family offices who book for all of them. The brief is given once; from the aircraft steps to the last table in the Oltrarno, one team plans, drives and covers it.
Why hire a bodyguard in Florence?
Professional Pickpockets
The Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, the Uffizi queue, the San Lorenzo market and the Santa Maria Novella station are worked by organised pickpocket crews who do nothing else. Distraction, the petition, the bump on the bridge: all of it targets a visitor whose eyes are on the dome rather than the bag.
The Restricted Zone
The historic centre is a restricted traffic zone enforced by cameras, and a vehicle without the right permit cannot enter it, or is fined for every gate it passes. The walk from the edge of the zone to a hotel door is exposure, and the permit is the detail.
Visible Wealth
The Via de’ Tornabuoni, the jewellers of the Ponte Vecchio and the palace hotels are where serious jewellery and serious watches are bought and worn, and where a recognisable face is read at a glance. The walk back to the hotel across the bridge is where it matters.
Pitti & the Calendar
Pitti Uomo in January and June fills every hotel with the fashion industry and its photographers, the Calcio Storico fills Santa Croce in June, and the Easter and summer peaks fill the centre to standing. Each concentrates crowds, closures and cameras into the same few streets.
Villas & Burglary
The villas of Fiesole, the Chianti and the Versilia coast are secluded by design, and seclusion is the vulnerability: long drives, open gardens, seasonal staff and burglary crews who study a house at leisure, particularly in the weeks when a family is known to be away.
Art, Jewellery & Hand-Carry
Florence is a city of collectors, dealers and goldsmiths, and a purchase or a loan that leaves a gallery or a workshop in a bag is a target from that moment until it is in a safe. A piece that travels is a brief in itself.
Bodyguard Services in Florence
Vetted Italian Officers
Close protection officers with Carabinieri, Polizia and military backgrounds, dressed for a palace hotel lobby rather than a checkpoint, NDA-bound, briefed to our standard and supervised throughout.
Secure Transportation
Executive sedans and SUVs with security-trained drivers who hold the permits for the restricted centre, routes planned with hill-road alternates, and the vehicle positioned at the one gate where it may actually enter.
Museums & Private Visits
Timed entries and private openings at the Uffizi, the Accademia and the Pitti arranged with the concierge team, the queue removed, the officer a step ahead in the galleries and the car moving so the return is a door, not a search.
Pitti & Event Details
Pitti Uomo and Pitti Bimbo at the Fortezza da Basso, the presentations and the dinners around them, the Calcio Storico and private celebrations in the palaces and the villas: venue advance, arrival choreography and officers who know when to be seen and when to disappear.
Villa & Hotel Security
Suites at the Four Seasons, the Savoy, the St. Regis and the Portrait, villas in Fiesole and the Chianti and houses on the Versilia coast, from a single overnight to a standing detail, with the household briefed and the approaches reviewed.
Art, Jewellery & Hand-Carry
A purchase from a Tornabuoni jeweller or a Ponte Vecchio goldsmith, a piece from a dealer or a loan to an exhibition, carried by an officer from the door to the safe, the aircraft or the next city, with chain of custody throughout.
The historic centre, the Tornabuoni & the palace hotels
Most of our Florence principals stay inside or on the edge of the restricted centre: the Four Seasons in its palazzo and garden on the Borgo Pinti, the Savoy on the Piazza della Repubblica, the St. Regis and the Westin on the Arno, the Portrait and the Helvetia & Bristol a few steps from the Tornabuoni, and Villa Cora and Villa San Michele in the hills above. Each has its own geometry of entrance, courtyard and lift, and each is reached by a vehicle only through the permitted gates of the zone at the permitted hours. The Via de’ Tornabuoni and the streets around it hold the Florentine and Italian houses and the city’s jewellers, and a shopping afternoon is handled the way we handle Avenue Montaigne: private appointments so pieces are viewed in a salon rather than at a counter, the vehicle positioned where the permit allows it to stand, purchases carried by the team rather than the principal, and the walk back to the hotel across the Ponte Santa Trinita reduced to a few observed metres.
Peretola, Pisa & the private terminals
Florence’s own airport at Peretola is small, close to the city and limited by its runway, so a Florence itinerary often arrives through Pisa, an hour away on the motorway, or through Rome and Milan and the high-speed train into Santa Maria Novella, which is the most pickpocketed building in Tuscany. We plan each arrival out of existence: a meet inside the terminal or on the platform, luggage handled and counted, a vehicle staged so the walk is seconds, and a driver who holds the permit to enter the centre and knows which gate to use at that hour. Principals arriving by private aircraft use the general aviation handling at Peretola, where the ramp is a few steps from the vehicle, or at Pisa, where the larger aircraft land. Our coordinator speaks to your ground handler directly rather than through you. See executive transportation in Florence.
The Uffizi, the Accademia & the museum day
The museums are the reason most of our principals come to Florence, and the queues are the reason they need us: the line for the Uffizi and the line for the David are the two places in the city where a family stands still in a crowd for an hour with its attention elsewhere, which is exactly the condition the pickpocket crews work. We remove the queue rather than endure it, with timed entries, private openings before the public hours and a guide arranged through the concierge team, and the officer walks a step ahead in the galleries, manages where the group stops, and keeps the car moving so the return is a door opened at the exit rather than a search for a vehicle on a street where none may wait. The Pitti and the Boboli, the Bargello, the Medici chapels and the Duomo climb are handled the same way, and the family sees the paintings while someone else watches the room.
Pitti Uomo, the Calcio Storico & the calendar
Twice a year, in January and June, the Fortezza da Basso hosts Pitti Uomo and the men’s fashion industry fills the city: every hotel, every restaurant, every photographer on the Tornabuoni, and a calendar of presentations, dinners and parties in the palaces and the villas that is where the real business and the real exposure happen. Pitti Bimbo follows, the Maggio Musicale fills the opera house in spring, Easter brings the Scoppio del Carro to the Duomo, and in June the Calcio Storico turns the Piazza Santa Croce into a stadium for a week. We plan the event weeks backwards from the hotel: the floor and the lift agreed, the stand and the presentations covered when the principal is at them, the walk between the Fortezza and the centre handled, and the dinners covered by an officer who reads as part of the company and knows when to be seen and when to disappear.
Fiesole, the Chianti & the villa weeks
The Florentine way to stay is in a villa in the hills: Fiesole and Settignano above the city, the Chianti between Florence and Siena, the estates around Greve, Panzano and Castellina with their vineyards and their long cypress drives. Families take them for a week or a season, celebrations fill them with a hundred guests, and the brief changes with them: the drive into the city each morning through the permitted gate, the day at a winery, the market in Greve, and a house where seclusion is the point and seclusion is the vulnerability, with open gardens, seasonal staff and gates that are not always closed. Residence work here is advance work: access, lighting and the drive reviewed, the household briefed, deliveries controlled, and an officer present in a way that guests and neighbours never register. For a celebration, the venue is walked in advance and the jewellery and the gifts are watched by someone who is not a guest.
Collectors, jewellers & the piece that travels
Florence is a city of goldsmiths, dealers, restorers and collectors, from the jewellers of the Ponte Vecchio to the antiquaries of the Via Maggio and the workshops of the Oltrarno, and a large share of our work here involves something valuable changing hands: a purchase from a Tornabuoni house, a piece from a dealer, a loan to the Biennale or an exhibition, a family’s own jewellery worn for a wedding in a villa. From the moment it leaves the counter or the safe it is a target, and the brief is simple: an officer carries it, the chain of custody is documented, the route is planned with the restricted zone and the bridges in mind, and it goes door to door to the safe, the aircraft or the next city without a handover. See hand-carry courier.
How a Florence detail is actually run
It starts with your itinerary, not with a headcount. We read the dates, the profile, the hotel or the villa and the season, then propose the smallest team that genuinely covers it: most often one officer with a security driver who holds the permits for the centre, sometimes a two-officer rotation for a Pitti week or a villa celebration, occasionally a full detail with advance work at every venue and a Siena, Forte dei Marmi or Rome leg. Every officer is vetted, NDA-bound and briefed to the Algoz standard; every hotel, villa, museum and venue is walked before you arrive; and one Algoz contact stays with the engagement from proposal to the departure flight, so you are never managing an unfamiliar vendor in an unfamiliar city. The proposal, the schedule and the written day plan are provided in Japanese, Russian, Arabic or French on request. How close protection works.
Beyond Florence: Siena, Forte dei Marmi, Lucca & the rest of Italy
Few Tuscan itineraries stay in Florence. The same team follows the principal to Siena and San Gimignano, to the wine towns of Montalcino and Montepulciano, to Lucca and Pisa, and in summer to Forte dei Marmi and the Versilia coast, where the villas and the beach clubs fill with the same families who winter in the city. The hill roads are narrow and slow, the towns have their own restricted zones, and the coast in August is a different brief from the city in January. For itineraries continuing to Rome, Milan or Venice, the handover happens inside Algoz, not on your desk, and the same applies to Capri and the Amalfi Coast in the summer.
What Italian law licenses in Florence, and what it leaves to the provider.
Italian private security law is written around property, not people. Under article 134 of the Consolidated Public Security Act (TULPS), Royal Decree 773/1931, nobody may offer guarding or custody of property, or private investigations, without a licence issued by the Prefecture, and the same article bars any licence for work involving public functions or restricting personal liberty. The sworn guard (GPG) is approved by decree of the Prefect under article 138, for two years, only while employed by a licensed institute or an owner, and guards property. DM 269/2010 classes licensed security work from A to E and lists no protection of persons, and Italian legal commentary treats protecting a person as a police function. So nobody holds a bodyguard licence in Florence, and a private protection officer works with an ordinary citizen’s powers. A bodyguard brought from Japan, the Gulf or the United States has the same powers as any visitor, and no foreign permit lets him go armed.
Algoz works through Prefecture-licensed institutes for anything touching the guarding of property, and with vetted, NDA-bound Italian officers for the people, and confirms in writing who employs each officer and who insures the work. See how our close protection works, combine it with concierge across Italy, add secure transport in Florence, or extend to Rome and Milan.
The moments that specifically call for protection in Florence.
Pitti Uomo in January and June is the obvious one: the fashion industry, its photographers and its parties in the same few streets and palaces for a week. Easter and the summer peak fill the centre to standing, the Calcio Storico fills Santa Croce in June, and the Christmas weeks bring the jewellery shopping to the Tornabuoni exactly when the streets are fullest. The museum day is the quiet category: an hour standing still in a queue is the condition the pickpocket crews wait for, and a timed entry and an officer remove it.
A purchase or a loan that travels is a brief from the counter to the safe. Villa weeks in Fiesole and the Chianti, celebrations with a hundred guests, the arrival at Pisa or Santa Maria Novella after a long journey, and the summer on the Versilia coast round out the moments where even a short stay benefits from an officer and a security driver. And for families, the practical value is simple: the children see the David and the dome while someone else watches everything approaching them.
"In Florence everyone is looking up. Good protection is the one person in the square who is not."
Hire a Bodyguard in Florence
Seven days is the notice we ask for. Shorter notice we look at case by case, but under 48 hours carries an urgency fee and cannot be guaranteed. No one puts a vetted officer in place in 24 hours. Share your dates, your hotel or villa and your itinerary and we respond with a clear proposal, confidential from the first message.
EnquireWhat a bodyguard in Florence costs.
As a guide, professional close protection in Italy and Western Europe is, in 2026, from EUR 950 per day for a single principal on twelve-hour cover, the market base, with the final rate shaped by the profile, the threat picture and the season, and confirmed on enquiry with no obligation. Specialist profiles, short-notice mobilisation, the Pitti weeks, Easter and the summer peak and coastal or multi-city legs carry a premium. A security driver with an executive vehicle and the permits for the restricted centre is quoted separately and, in a city a vehicle cannot otherwise enter, is usually the most useful addition; team details and multi-city programmes are quoted above the base, to the brief. Payment is by card or bank transfer in EUR, USD, GBP or AED.
Further reading: what a bodyguard costs, our full close protection pricing guide, how a security driver works, and how modern close protection is run.
One officer, one brief: specialist protection in Florence.
Hand-Carry Courier
One officer, one journey, no handovers, for watches, jewellery and documents.
Student Protection Abroad
Low-profile cover for sons and daughters at school and university far from home.
Senior Travel Protection
A vetted officer who travels with an older parent, door to door.
Medical Travel Protection
Airport to clinic, an officer who waits, and nobody who needs to know.
TSCM Bug Sweep
Hidden cameras, microphones and trackers found before you walk into the room.
Personal Shopper in Milan
The Quadrilatero by appointment, with the pieces carried for you.
Protection in related destinations.
Protecting celebrities & public figures
Actors, musicians, athletes, royals and the people the world recognises - celebrity protection is its own discipline: anti-paparazzi strategy, leak-proof operations, crowd and stalker management, and details that switch from red carpet to invisible in the same day.
Celebrity Close ProtectionAlgoz FZ-LLC (Trade License 5033995 | TRN 105119056700001) is licensed for Businessmen Services and Lifestyle Development Consultancy by RAKEZ. Operational services such as security, transportation and concierge are delivered through vetted, licensed specialist partners, selected, contracted and overseen by Algoz. All operational execution is performed by vetted third-party partners holding the local permits the law requires (in Italy: Prefettura-licensed security institutes under the TULPS, Royal Decree 773/1931, for the activities that law licenses). We provide direct assistance and support in partnership with local regulated providers, complying with local laws. Clients are responsible for obtaining any required approvals. Armed services require a minimum 30-day lead time for authorisation, which may be refused. All activities comply with UAE laws and RAKEZ regulations.