[3] Since the fourteenth century, the city has always been considered a getaway for members of the upper class of Florence and, up to this day, Fiesole remains noted for its very expensive residential properties, just as well as its centuries-old villas and their formal gardens.

The campus of the European University Institute is situated in the suburb and uses several historical buildings including the Badia Faesolina and the Villa Schifanoia.

The remains of its prehistoric walls and ancient structures have been preserved and an archaeological museum in the town presents artifacts from and information about these cultural periods.

In Roman antiquity, it was the seat of a famous school of augurs and, every year, twelve young men were sent there from Rome to study the art of divination.

[14] It is also documented that the artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci experimented for the first time with early flying models on the hills of Fiesole.

The city was featured equally in the novels Peter Camenzind (1904) by Hermann Hesse, A Room with a View (1908) by E. M. Forster, and in the book of travel essays Italian Hours (1909) by Henry James.