Sicilian Culture: News: Baretta Celebrates 475 Years of Gunmaking

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Baretta Celebrates 475 Years of Gunmaking
By Dick Metcalf, Shooting Times Magazine, December 2001 Issue

It is astonishing that a company should be in business for 475 years, but further more impressive that it is still owned by the original Italian family which began the company in 1526 A.D.
When we analyze it carefully, we must recognize that 50% of all new businesses fail within the first year, and 80% within the first five years. Beretta on the other hand has endured and survived five centuries of local, regional, and world wide economic downturns, not to mention the tumultuous upheavals of regional and world wars, and is still vibrant and profitable today.
Perhaps Mr. Metcalf summed it up rather succinctly when he said, "The Beretta family has been making guns for nearly five centuries, a history unequaled by any other manufacturing company of any kind in the world."
The company began during the time when "Michelangelo takes a well-deserved break between the completion of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and beginning the work on "The Last Judgment" by designing fortifications for the Medicis' Kingdom of Florence. In the small village of Gardone Val Trompia, in the northern provinces near Milan, one Bartolomeo Beretta, maestro de canne, on October 3rd receives a commission of 296 ducats from the Senate of the Republic of Venice for the manufacturing of 185 arquebus barrels. 'Maestro de canne' -- master gun maker."
"Thus did history first take official notice of the surname Beretta, the greatest family of armsmakers the world has ever known. Though local records from that period are scant, we know that Bartolomeo was born before 1498 and was independently established as a maker of cannon barrels by 1520. Bartolomeo's son Jacomo followed him into the family business. As did Jacomo's sons Lodovico and Giovannino. Lodovico set up a separate branch of the family enterprise in nearby Brescia, manufacturing gun locks, while Giovannino established his own barrel-making works in Gardone parish."
"The Venetian Republic chose Beretta products in 1526 after a review of competing samples (perhaps very much like the process that would result in Beretta's selection as the official U.S. military sidearm half a millennium later). And as the Beretta name became synonymous with uncompromising quality, design, materials, construction, and performance, word spread beyond the Italian borders, establishing a tradition that has carried down through 15 generations of the family."
"The history of the Beretta family and company would fill volumes -- or at least a book as weighty as the 385-page WORLD OF BERETTA: AN INTERNATIONAL LEGEND written by distinguished firearms historian Larry Wilson and published by Random House to commemorate the company's 475th year. Filled with Beretta facts and folklore, lavishly illustrated with many never-before-published photos from the company and family archives, it is available ($65 retail) through any bookstore."
The article by Metcalf goes on to sing the praises of the workman/womanship and craftsman/womanship of the Beretta firearms. A small example of such fine workman/womanship is illustrated when Metcalf writes: "During the durability test of 12 randomly selected Model 92FS pistols fired at the Beretta USA plant under Army supervision, the guns went 168,000 rounds without a malfunction. This makes the Beretta 92 the most thoroughly tested handgun in history, and the customer-confidence factor engendered by these reliability statistics is reflected by the growing number of local police, state police, and sheriff's departments across the U.S. that have adopted the basic Beretta Model 92 design. In 1995 the Beretta Model 96 Brigadier D was developed to meet the special needs of the U.S Border Patrol and is now being offered to the consumer market. In the past two years, Beretta USA was awarded two follow-on military contracts to the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army Reserve and National Guard."
"New and innovative handgun products like the 21st-century Model 9000S and the brand-new ultramodern .22 rimfire U22 Neos pictured on the cover and discussed in the accompanying interview with Beretta design engineer Roy Melcher show no indication that the company's energies have in any way flagged after all its recent expansion. Beretta today offers the broadest range of products of any of the world's gunmakers -- from the smallest personal-defense pocket pistols to Olympic, gold-medal-winning, high-tech, work-of-art shotguns that have won more Olympic Games and World Championships than any other brand. Anybody want to lay odds that Beretta won't go on for a thousand years?"

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