I just came back from a 2 week trip to Italy and this was the worst hotel out of the four I stayed at. This hotel is rated with 2 stars, but it's barely passable as a youth hostel. I stayed in a single - Room 8 for four nights and this is what I found:

PROS
1. Convenient location. It's around the corner from the Santa Maria Novella train station and the local grocery market is only down the street.
2. There is a working elevator.

CONS
1. Cleaning is very poor standard. The hotel policy is to change their sheets only once after every 3 nights (although one staff member agreed to allow my sheets to be cleaned on the second night after I spoke to him). I don't think the cleaning staff did any more than make my bed, clean out the trash and give me new packets of soap and shampoo everyday. Other than that, I didn't notice that the bathroom or floors were cleaned the whole time I was there.
2. The toilet was absolutely disgusting, as half of the seat and rim was covered in a dark yellow URINE STAIN.
3. Extremely noisy. My room was the first one on the right, about 10 feet away from reception and one door away from the breakfast room. You could hear everyone in the hallway and reception area. The room had a small balcony which I never wanted to step out onto because it faced an unpleasant view of other people's decrepit balconies, laundry and huge and ugly air conditioning fans stacked on top of each other that were EXTREMELY LOUD and ON ALL DAY and ALL NIGHT. It was like living with an industrial engine in your room. In addition, there was a constant noise coming from the pipes in the bathroom.
4. The hallway and reception area constantly smelled like cigarette smoke.
5. My bed and pillow had a sour foul smell even after the sheets had been changed. The whole room just smelled like mildew and old furniture.
6. Walls were aged and had yellow water stains all over.
7. You have to pay for the room at the same time you check-in.
8. I think wi-fi is only available in the reception area, so if you have a room along the hallway be prepared for traffic and noise from guests using this as a wifi hotspot.

Good location of the hotel (near to Santa Maria Novella train station). Good personnel. Very small bathroom.

No doubt that the most advantage of this hotel is its excellent location (2 minutes from the train station SMN)....but other than this point, I can't find another reason to choose it again. The worse thing of this hotel is the cleaning service is very very poor!! I stayed at this hotel for 4 nights. I think they had not changed the matress for us at all. I felt itchying of my foot from the second night, seems like flea in the bed. The towels are terrible. The shower is weak indeed and lack of hot water suddenly!! The light is dim!!The fridge is not cold enough. The breadfast is only bread,actually, it is not a problem BUT the bread seems had been put for several days.........
Of course it is not costly and at excellent location...but other than these, it is not a good place to stay!

This place is ideal if you arrive via the train station or terravision bus that stops there, as it's literally 5 mins walk or just under. Just follow the directions given by previous posters, we were very glad we'd printed them off as it was a little tricky finding our bearings.

Because Florence is quite a small city, we found that everywhere was walkable from the hotel, I think it took 10-15 mins to get to the Duomo.

The hotel is in a large, old building, and has a funny old lift, we were a bit wary of it initially but it was quite sturdy really! I think we had room number 2, and we were pleasantly surprised by the size of the room, by European standards it was huge! I was staying with my mother and expected that we may have to share a double bed, but there was 1 double bed plus a single one, and plenty of space still in the room, including a fridge and wardrobe. It was quite nicely decorated, and the bathroom, through small, was fine, shower was good.

Only downside was that it was quite noisy, with thin walls and street noise, but we could live with it.

Breakfast was fine, included in the price, fresh rolls and croissants, jam, not a huge selection but adequate.

Compared to other hotels we looked at, for the low price we paid it seemed to be very good value.

Florence itself was a lovely city, we climbed the Campanile (bell tower) steps rather than the Duomo, apparently the steps a less steep and also it means you can include the duomo itself in your photos. Much better! Prices for eating out seemed quite expensive, for us, other Brits also would have noticed that it all seems dearer now euro and pound are almost level. There are some set price menu promotions if you look, though.

One unexpected place we visited was the Medieval Horror History museum "Interactive Museum of Medieval Florence" (Museo Interattivo sulla Firenze Medievale), we stumbled across it, it's not too far from the Duomo but seems to get mixed up with another history museum in San Grimignano, this one was good, we shared a headset and walked round the small museum, which is made to feel old and creepy and dark. You watch a video and hear the narration at different 'stops', with various artefacts to see. It was really quite interesting, especially if you like history, and makes you realise that Florence hasn't always been the civilised, beautiful place it is today. I just tried to search for which street it's on the web but couldn't find it, but if you ask at your hotel maybe they'll be able to tell you.