Family trip to Italy

How wonderful!

Are you looking for urban or rural?

I looked into a place for a month in Italy and France recently. We chose to go to France first but in Italy I had narrowed it down to Verona or Padua
-Both places offer easy transportation to Venice, Bolzano, Ortisei, and the Dolomites, and Lake Garda,. They seemed like midsize towns that were livable, walkable, interesting, safe, lots of cafes.

I might look at something smaller like Vicenza, Treviso or Bassano del Grappa too.

If you sleep in Florence, you can take day trips to:
Venice (2h 15m train)
Siena (1h 15m bus)
Rome (1h 45 train)
Milan (2h train)
Orvieto (2h 15m train)
Padua (1h 45m train)
Pisa (1h train)
Lucca (1h 30m train)
San Gimignano (2h bus and requires a connection)

Wow- what a wonderful plan! Lucky family.

How do you envision your place? Villa with a pool? City apartment?
As I am sure you know it will be hot.
Where will your kids/grandkids want to visit or do while there?
Where will you want to visit?

I quite like CaliMom’s suggestions- I think it might be cooler in Veneto than Tuscany, for example?

Although you probably can’t go wrong with a central Tuscany location with a train station- you’d want/need AC, perhaps a pool for family.
Not sure Florence in July would be the best choice ;)
To me- day trips should be not much more than 60-90 by train or car.

Hard to make any really specific location suggestions without knowing what your interests/needs are.

Heat can be a big issue in most of Italy during the summer. I'd suggest checking out the actual, historical, day-by-day temperatures on timeanddate.com. Forget monthly averages that may not be very up-to-date. Look at what actually happened in your possible base areas over the last 3 to 5 years. Here's Florence for July 2021:
https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/italy/firenze/historic?month=7&year=2021

For those concerned about the heat, please note that this family is from Florida! Of course, everything in FL has AC. acraven, I do reaIize how hot and humid it is in DC-we were there this month and it was quite warm. I think Florence is a great location-very walkable, lots to do, good day trips.

Florence would be my choice.

Most home rentals do not have a/c. With children, look for a home with a pool.
You may need to spend more than $10,000 for a month.

OK, if considering Florence....
I have not stayed at this property, and it's new to booking.com so only has one review so far. Just for fun, I did a 4-week search (July 1 - July 29) on the site and this was the best option to come up, IMHO: 4 bedrooms/4 bathrooms, air conditioning and a pool. No sofabeds! Looks to be on a bus line, and is not all THAT far from center, depending on what sort of walkers you are. It also fits your price range. Worth taking a look, anyway? You'll want to enter exact # of adults and children (you'll be asked for their ages, and over age 12 may be considered adults) that info for more exact pricing. I also haven't done a virtual "walk" of its surroundings but I'd recommend doing so.

https://www.booking.com/hotel/it/villa-lia-firenze1.html

I loved Florence, and there's enough to see in the city itself not to need a ton of day trips to stay occupied. Hot and busy? It will be both, in July, but you'll probably be fine if not trying to sightsee at breakneck pace nor spending EVERY day at the most-visited attractions. :O) Using a car to get around this particular city is usually not advised due to the number of ZTLs but I'll leave that to others who've navigated it on wheels v.s. feet and public transport (our method).

Editing to add: from quick google map look, the area appears to be pretty residential (not necessarily a bad thing) so may be bit of a walk to the nearest restaurants.

Thank you so much everyone. Very good suggestions and things to consider. I very much appreciate all the feedback.
Will do some more research and then let you know my decision and the reasons.
JoAnne