• Bonnie Marie Guerra, 50,found dead in bedroom of her penthouse apartment
• Although police found no signs of violence but have not ruled out murder

By Hannah Roberts

PUBLISHED: 08:02 EST, 4 September 2013 | UPDATED: 08:02 EST, 4 September 2013

An American woman has been found dead in a luxury penthouse apartment in Florence.

The lifeless body of Bonnie Marie Guerra, 50, was discovered by a maid on Tuesday in her bedroom in Piazza Pitti, one of the city’s finest Renaissance squares.

The Italian-American had been in the city for a fortnight and had taken the apartment for a year. She had arrived in the city from California on 17 August, her 50th birthday and had celebrated it with family members, the newspaper reported.

A maid came into the apartment at about 15.20 on Tuesday afternoon and discovered the guest’s unresponsive body face down on the floor of the bedroom. She called for medical help but it was too late.

Near the body police found dietary supplements, vitamins, diabetes medicine and  anti-histamines. Her corpse was particularly thin, Italian media reported.

Although police found no signs of violence on the body, they have not ruled out murder.

A spokesman for the Florence police confirmed the identity of the woman.

She told Mail Online: ‘I can confirm the presence of the body of a woman inside an apartment in Piazza Pitti, number 7.

‘The discovery was made by a maid around 16.00 and a medical team was called.

‘We are continuing to investigate and our team are attempting to reconstruct the scene. There were no signs of violence. However we have not excluded from our investigation any hypothesis.’

An autopsy to ascertain the cause of death will be carried out this afternoon, she said.

The central Florence apartment faces directly onto the 15th century palace once owned by the ruling Medici family. It was later used as a power base by Napoleon and served as the home of Italy's King Victor Emmanuel III before he donated it to the Italian people in 1919.