After conferring the honour, Florence Mayor Dario Nardella performed a violin version of O sole mio especially for the 86-year-old international icon.

Hundreds of fans gathered outside Palazzo Vecchio, hoping to get the star’s autograph.

“We have admiration and gratitude for Sophia Loren,” Nardella said, hailing her as “a true icon of cinema, culture, art and our country”.

Loren was then greeted by crowds chanting her name outside a new restaurant that bears her name – Sophia Loren Original Italian Food on Via dei Brunelleschi – where she went for lunch.

Loren, who starred in the recent film La Vita Davanti a Sé (The Life Ahead), will be honoured by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures with its inaugural Visionary Award at a ceremony in Los Angeles in September.

In the film, directed by her son Edoardo Ponti, Loren plays a Holocaust survivor running a daycare business who forms an unlikely friendship with a bitter street kid when she takes him in after he robs her.