I am 30 weeks pregnant. My Ob/gyn is recommending I have the baby at Villa Donatella, wanted to see if anyone has heard anything good or bad about this clinic. I have only been living in Florence a short time, this is my first baby so am a little blind as to what to look for...all advice very much appreciated.

I have never actually used Villa Donatello, but
I visited there and it looked very nice. Unfortunately they didn't offer the services I was looking for, so we went elsewhere. I would make a visit yourself. Looked like a top notch place.

I'm 36 weeks - will be going there in a month! I visited once and spoke with the head midwife/nurse Gabriela and took a look around. I really ended up deciding on the hospital because of the comfort issue - having your own room(and bathroom!), water birth/laboring possible, epidural if wanted, and my OH gets to room in with me and the baby. Also there are only about 7 rooms so you get as much assistance from the staff as needed...which i feel like i will, being a first timer. I've spoken to several people about the hospital and all i've heard is good things, that it's one of the best hospitals in Florence to give birth. When i asked about their c-sec rate the nurse said not counting all the scheduled c-sec's they get, it's low. (But who knows, they can say what they want to..)
Everyone speaks very highly of Gabriela as well, i believe she's been in the maternity circut for years and finally ended up at Donatello. You can call and ask for her to set up a visit. She really made me feel at ease, seemed very knowledgeable - which is another reason why i finally decided on them. Especially since it's the midwife/nurse that will be with you the entire labor, not your Doc. He will basically just be there for the birth at the end. (at least that's how it was explained to me)
As for the hospital rooms, everything was clean and sterile looking, pretty outdated but hey you get the whole room to yourself! They also will arrange prenatal classes for you...but as my italian is pretty poor still they are going to set me up with one of the english speaking nurses to meet with a couple times.
Another thing i heard was that Donatello is the place that a lot of americans go to, and the majority of the staff speaks english.
good luck with making your decision! and to really get all your questions answered i really recommend talking with Gabriela.
Here's their website...
http://www.villadonatello.it/

Thanks so much for the response, I am going to call Gabriella...since posting have heard a lot of positive comments about Villa Donnatello. Best of luck with your delivery.