Italy’s importance in the history of art, government, politics, warfare, wine, and sport is recognized worldwide. The country has been the center of culture for centuries, its contributions to the advancement of technology is no less significant. No area of the world, in fact, can boast a greater role in the evolution of firearms than the ancient Italian valley region known as Val Trompia, with its central village of Gardone. For nearly two thousand years, beginning long before the age of firearms, this quiet community has been at the leading edge of weapons development. In the art of gun making, Val Trompia is the original Silicon Valley of arms technology.
Fifteen generations of Berettas have led their company in the transition from specialist gun barrel crafting. They have overseen Beretta’s progress through the production of sporting firearms, the introduction of models widely adopted by the military and law enforcement, its current international industrial enterprises, the adoption of modern production techniques, and the establishment of new operations in Europe and in North America. Beretta is more than a company, a family, or a gun. It is a treasure, a historic gift to the worlds of technology, decorative arts, firearms, field sports, marksmanship, and collecting.
Val Trompia includes the ancient gun barrel manufacturing center of Gardone and the capital city of Brescia, where completed firearms were assembled. The valley runs north to south through the Columbine Mountains, the source of both high-grade iron ore since pre-Roman times and timber to fuel the fires of the great smelteries and smithies. The Mella River, which flows through the valley, provided water power for early machinery and hydroelectric power in modern times. Val Trompia was an important center for iron working in the Middle Ages and achieved renown for fine guns beginning in the Renaissance.
The value of iron for weapons and armor was appreciated in the very earliest of historic periods. Although iron ore is fairly common throughout the world, its quality varies widely and is difficult to work. However Italy has historically provided some of the finest quality iron ore in the world.
Early firearms were large, heavy cannons and mortars, cast in bronze or forged from iron. Soon there followed attempts to design a practical handgun. From the earliest, which required a gunner seemingly with numerous arms and numerous eyes to fire, evolved the arquebus, a lighter muzzle loading gun. At first it was fired with a handheld, slow burning match. Later, a matchlock mechanism was employed. Finally, for civilian purposes, the arquebus was equipped with the elegant and complex wheel lock.
By 1562, Val Trompia had become a highly industrialized, highly specialized manufacturing center. The diverse labors referred to assembly line methods in which one type of craftsman was responsible for a particular operation.
By the sixteenth century Bartolomeo Beretta was making barrels for the arquebus, a heavy matchlock gun that was used by both the military and civilians, and for the larger rampart gun, a purely military weapon. Fine Beretta barrels were used on the hunting and military arms of England’s Henry VIII. They were also present on several guns owned by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and by several Popes in Rome. The wheel locks on these guns were supplied in Brescia by Lodvico Beretta.
The Berettas worked at small fires where rough plates were heated and wrapped around steel mandrels. Then began the fine art of welding the seam along the length of the barrel by hammering the overlapping edges together. Finely exquisite guns from Val Trompia that were manufactured with intricate decorations elaborately chiseled into their design were referred to as the Brescian style until the middle of the eighteenth century.
The 1630s were ravaged by an outbreak of bubonic plague and a series of murders as factions polarized around the Rampinelli and Chinelli families. Although the Beretta family was prominent and large in numbers during this turbulent period they were not involved in these chaotic deeds. This is probably the result of deliberate noninvolvement in politics which became a family tradition.
In 1641 Giovanni Antonio Beretta invented a breech loading cannon which he felt would be useful in place of the muzzle loading type that were placed in pairs around the perimeters of the palaces and castles. “I have discovered the true and safe secret for loading them at the breech, which is as though it were all of a piece, so that the fire can not escape and in no way leak out” he told the Senate. Beretta’s first gun was a two pounder, but the Senate wanted something bigger. Giovanni Antonio Beretta developed four and six pounders that appear to have been equally successful: on July 10, 1641 he was awarded the substantial payment of “ten whole ducats a month, in fine gold coin, for twenty years, the money to be paid to him or to whomever he appoints, and further two hundred ducats of current coin as a one time payment” The guns and their unique technology were not developed beyond the prototype stage.
In 1694 Bartolomeo Beretta was accused of the murder of Angelo Chinelli, a charge he adamantly denied, he was ordered held in house arrest. A few months later, Bartolomeo’s brother Giovanni, narrowly escaped an ambush set by the Chinelli clan. Another Beretta relative, Francesco, happened on the scene of the ambush and warned the Chinellis that if they fired on Giovanni, he would shoot them. A Chinelli fired, missing Giovanni, whereupon Francesco and his companion, Paolo Mutti, shot and killed a Chinelli. It was not until 1697 that the two Beretta’s were called to account. Francesco was sentenced to four years of compulsory military service, while Bartolomeo was exonerated and allowed to return to Gardone.
The second half of the seventeenth century had seen numerous developments in the technology of firearms and the tactics of war. The arquebus and old style muskets were replaced by a new musket that was lighter and did not require a support. The added feature of a bayonet gave the gunners protection during reloading. The flintlock replaced the wheel lock and the match lock; it became the standard for both military and civilian arms for two hundred years.
By the end of the 1600s the Berettas were established as preeminent manufacturers. In 1698, they were listed as the first in production of gun barrels among thirty-three chief master gun barrel manufacturers.
When Napoleon began incursions into northern Italy in 1796, the Venetian Senate simply lacked the will and the power to oppose him. By May of 1797 Venice was in French hands and within five months later had been sold to Austria under the Treaty of Campo Formio. Val Trompia was needed to keep Napoleon’s Grand Army supplied with arms. A new firearms factory with the latest equipment was established in Brescia. Nearly forty thousand muskets were produced yearly until Napoleon was defeated in 1815. The Beretta family of gun makers was awarded a “Good Service Certificate” from Napoleon for their part in the production.
Although very little is known of the early Berettas, the family history becomes more detailed with Pietro Antonio, son of Giuseppe Antonio Beretta, born in 1791 he began his tenure by mastering the building of barrels for shotguns and pistols. Very much aware that a new age of opportunity was drawing, he began traveling through Italy in 1815 to contact importers, wholesalers, and retail dealers. In 1832, he gave his firm the name it now bears today, Fabbrica d’ Armi Pietro Beretta.
Giuseppe Beretta was the next in succession of the Berettas to run the family business, this took place in 1850. During this time the Beretta Company experienced an explosion of growth and manufacturing. This can be directly contributed to Giuseppe’s business talents. In 1893 Giuseppe was nominated Cavalier dell’ Ordine della Corona d’ Italia,
(A Cavalier of the Order of the Crown of Italy). Beretta had become so prominent that in 1899 Giuseppe built the Beretta Hotel for the decorum of the industrious village and for the comfort of foreigners, who were by then visiting the factory. Part of the hotel complex was a theater for cultural performances, an unheard of innovative idea for it’s time. Giuseppe Beretta died in June of 1903 and was succeeded by the eldest of his five sons, Pietro, born in Gardone on April 22, 1870. Pietro would lead the firm for fifty-four years until his own death in 1957. His impact on the company’s future proved substantial and far reaching. More than anyone, Pietro Beretta made his company into one of the dominant industrial powers in the world of firearms.
Pietro assumed the reins of a company made up of one building of 100,000 square meters and 130 employees, and promptly began a new phase of development. Over several years of dedication, inspiration, and sheer hard work, Pietro oversaw an expansion to much larger facilities, with employees numbering 1,500. Despite the difficulties the Beretta family and their company lived through and prospered during the World Wars I and II. Pietro made sure that the company had its own source of energy. He built an innovative hydroelectric plant on the banks of the Mella River, with one of its turbines within a tunnel for emergency situations, such as wartime. It was his idea, also, to establish a proof house in Gardone which, he properly theorized, would make the Italian manufacturers competitive on a European level.
As World War I loomed, the demand for sporting arms had drastically dropped, however in 1915, orders for handguns had begun to come in from the Italian Royal Army. Beretta had contracted to produce one thousand barrels for the Fiat Model 1914 machine gun. Beretta’s success in this venture, combined with an awareness that the war would be long, resulted in the firm’s decision to design new military arms. The first to come to fruition was a patented conversion of the Vetterli Model 70 and the Model 70-87 rifles and carbines for use with the regulation Model 1891 cartridge.
Pietro had the help of the brilliant inventor and designer, Tullio Marengoni, who’s creative run of new products began with the hammerless shotgun in the first decade of the twentieth century and covered nearly every important Beretta firearm until circa 1960. Pietro Beretta provided the leadership that was essential in guiding Marengoni to create new firearms and in turning Marengoni’s inventions into practical reality. It was Marengoni who developed the Beretta Model 1915 automatic pistol, which was adopted by the Italian Royal Army, and which by the end of the war was being produced at an astounding rate of 4,200 per month. Marengoni went on to develop the first true submachine gun, the Model 1918 automatic carbine.
As World War II began, the Italian government contracted with Beretta for military arms. Included were orders for the Model 1934 automatic pistol and a new Beretta automatic rifle, the MAB38A. When the Italian government collapsed in 1943, German SS troops occupied the Beretta plant to supervise production. Although Pietro and his sons Pier Giuseppe and Carlo were under constant suspicion, somehow firearms made their way into the hands of partisans. At one point, Carlo was imprisoned for two weeks awaiting transport to an extermination camp. Only his importance to continued production at the Beretta factory saved him. When Gardone was bombed in 1944, the factory suffered heavy damage. Fortunately, the machinery had been moved into tunnels in the mountain side and had survived. At the close of the war, German troops placed Pietro Beretta under arrest. He was rescued by a determined band of partisans, who in the process captured several prisoners. Pietro Beretta could well have been summarily executed by the Nazis. His survival allowed Pietro to spearhead the company’s post war revival.
Following Italy’s surrender to the Allies, Beretta was able to recommence production of shotguns, beginning the long process of recovery from the ravages of war. Partly using the machinery that had been protected in the mountain side tunnels, Pietro Beretta transformed the post war firm into a modern, streamlined manufacturing enterprise, with up to date equipment and administration. His death on May 1st 1957 truly marked the end of an era.
If Pietro is remembered as an empire builder, then his sons Pier Giuseppe and Carlo earned for that empire international status as arguably the leading producer of a comprehensive line of small arms of a variety of types, both civilian and military.
Over the years a number of new products joined the Beretta line, among them the BM59, a modified Garand rifle in 7.62 NATO with semi and full automatic capability. The revisions were achieved by Beretta in only three months, in contrast to the twelve years required for the U.S. Ordnance to develop the basically identical M14. Among other milestones firearms are the Model 1951 pistol, the PM12 submachine gun, the AR70 military rifle, and the expanded SO series of deluxe over and under shotguns.
In 1975 Beretta introduced perhaps its most famous firearm of all times. The 9mm Model 92 auto loading pistol. It was quickly adopted by the Brazilian Police do Esercito, and later by the Italian police and military. Over the next twenty-five years the Model 92 became the sidearm of choice for the French Gendarmerie Nationale, the U.S. armed forces, and more than 1,600 law enforcement agencies in North America alone. The U.S. armed forces adopted the Model 92 on April 10th 1985. This phenomenal firearm won out over numerous other major firearms manufacturers such as; Smith & Wesson, Colt, Heckler & Koch, Sig Sauer, Walther, and Styer, by consistently surpassing all of the requirements imposed by the U.S. military through an arduous testing process.
When Carlo Beretta died on March 5th 1984 at the age of seventy-six, at least ten thousand mourners paid tribute. Honoring a man of the Valley, citizens lined the streets of Gardone while his coffin was borne from the family villa to his final resting place. A tribute to a man, a family, a company, and a firearm that is renowned in the annals of history, Beretta.
Lieutenant Vince Testa #302
Commanding Officer
Firearms Identification Unit
843-849 North 8th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123-2001
Fifteen generations of Berettas have led their company in the transition from specialist gun barrel crafting. They have overseen Beretta’s progress through the production of sporting firearms, the introduction of models widely adopted by the military and law enforcement, its current international industrial enterprises, the adoption of modern production techniques, and the establishment of new operations in Europe and in North America. Beretta is more than a company, a family, or a gun. It is a treasure, a historic gift to the worlds of technology, decorative arts, firearms, field sports, marksmanship, and collecting.
Val Trompia includes the ancient gun barrel manufacturing center of Gardone and the capital city of Brescia, where completed firearms were assembled. The valley runs north to south through the Columbine Mountains, the source of both high-grade iron ore since pre-Roman times and timber to fuel the fires of the great smelteries and smithies. The Mella River, which flows through the valley, provided water power for early machinery and hydroelectric power in modern times. Val Trompia was an important center for iron working in the Middle Ages and achieved renown for fine guns beginning in the Renaissance.
The value of iron for weapons and armor was appreciated in the very earliest of historic periods. Although iron ore is fairly common throughout the world, its quality varies widely and is difficult to work. However Italy has historically provided some of the finest quality iron ore in the world.
Early firearms were large, heavy cannons and mortars, cast in bronze or forged from iron. Soon there followed attempts to design a practical handgun. From the earliest, which required a gunner seemingly with numerous arms and numerous eyes to fire, evolved the arquebus, a lighter muzzle loading gun. At first it was fired with a handheld, slow burning match. Later, a matchlock mechanism was employed. Finally, for civilian purposes, the arquebus was equipped with the elegant and complex wheel lock.
By 1562, Val Trompia had become a highly industrialized, highly specialized manufacturing center. The diverse labors referred to assembly line methods in which one type of craftsman was responsible for a particular operation.
By the sixteenth century Bartolomeo Beretta was making barrels for the arquebus, a heavy matchlock gun that was used by both the military and civilians, and for the larger rampart gun, a purely military weapon. Fine Beretta barrels were used on the hunting and military arms of England’s Henry VIII. They were also present on several guns owned by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and by several Popes in Rome. The wheel locks on these guns were supplied in Brescia by Lodvico Beretta.
The Berettas worked at small fires where rough plates were heated and wrapped around steel mandrels. Then began the fine art of welding the seam along the length of the barrel by hammering the overlapping edges together. Finely exquisite guns from Val Trompia that were manufactured with intricate decorations elaborately chiseled into their design were referred to as the Brescian style until the middle of the eighteenth century.
The 1630s were ravaged by an outbreak of bubonic plague and a series of murders as factions polarized around the Rampinelli and Chinelli families. Although the Beretta family was prominent and large in numbers during this turbulent period they were not involved in these chaotic deeds. This is probably the result of deliberate noninvolvement in politics which became a family tradition.
In 1641 Giovanni Antonio Beretta invented a breech loading cannon which he felt would be useful in place of the muzzle loading type that were placed in pairs around the perimeters of the palaces and castles. “I have discovered the true and safe secret for loading them at the breech, which is as though it were all of a piece, so that the fire can not escape and in no way leak out” he told the Senate. Beretta’s first gun was a two pounder, but the Senate wanted something bigger. Giovanni Antonio Beretta developed four and six pounders that appear to have been equally successful: on July 10, 1641 he was awarded the substantial payment of “ten whole ducats a month, in fine gold coin, for twenty years, the money to be paid to him or to whomever he appoints, and further two hundred ducats of current coin as a one time payment” The guns and their unique technology were not developed beyond the prototype stage.
In 1694 Bartolomeo Beretta was accused of the murder of Angelo Chinelli, a charge he adamantly denied, he was ordered held in house arrest. A few months later, Bartolomeo’s brother Giovanni, narrowly escaped an ambush set by the Chinelli clan. Another Beretta relative, Francesco, happened on the scene of the ambush and warned the Chinellis that if they fired on Giovanni, he would shoot them. A Chinelli fired, missing Giovanni, whereupon Francesco and his companion, Paolo Mutti, shot and killed a Chinelli. It was not until 1697 that the two Beretta’s were called to account. Francesco was sentenced to four years of compulsory military service, while Bartolomeo was exonerated and allowed to return to Gardone.
The second half of the seventeenth century had seen numerous developments in the technology of firearms and the tactics of war. The arquebus and old style muskets were replaced by a new musket that was lighter and did not require a support. The added feature of a bayonet gave the gunners protection during reloading. The flintlock replaced the wheel lock and the match lock; it became the standard for both military and civilian arms for two hundred years.
By the end of the 1600s the Berettas were established as preeminent manufacturers. In 1698, they were listed as the first in production of gun barrels among thirty-three chief master gun barrel manufacturers.
When Napoleon began incursions into northern Italy in 1796, the Venetian Senate simply lacked the will and the power to oppose him. By May of 1797 Venice was in French hands and within five months later had been sold to Austria under the Treaty of Campo Formio. Val Trompia was needed to keep Napoleon’s Grand Army supplied with arms. A new firearms factory with the latest equipment was established in Brescia. Nearly forty thousand muskets were produced yearly until Napoleon was defeated in 1815. The Beretta family of gun makers was awarded a “Good Service Certificate” from Napoleon for their part in the production.
Although very little is known of the early Berettas, the family history becomes more detailed with Pietro Antonio, son of Giuseppe Antonio Beretta, born in 1791 he began his tenure by mastering the building of barrels for shotguns and pistols. Very much aware that a new age of opportunity was drawing, he began traveling through Italy in 1815 to contact importers, wholesalers, and retail dealers. In 1832, he gave his firm the name it now bears today, Fabbrica d’ Armi Pietro Beretta.
Giuseppe Beretta was the next in succession of the Berettas to run the family business, this took place in 1850. During this time the Beretta Company experienced an explosion of growth and manufacturing. This can be directly contributed to Giuseppe’s business talents. In 1893 Giuseppe was nominated Cavalier dell’ Ordine della Corona d’ Italia,
(A Cavalier of the Order of the Crown of Italy). Beretta had become so prominent that in 1899 Giuseppe built the Beretta Hotel for the decorum of the industrious village and for the comfort of foreigners, who were by then visiting the factory. Part of the hotel complex was a theater for cultural performances, an unheard of innovative idea for it’s time. Giuseppe Beretta died in June of 1903 and was succeeded by the eldest of his five sons, Pietro, born in Gardone on April 22, 1870. Pietro would lead the firm for fifty-four years until his own death in 1957. His impact on the company’s future proved substantial and far reaching. More than anyone, Pietro Beretta made his company into one of the dominant industrial powers in the world of firearms.
Pietro assumed the reins of a company made up of one building of 100,000 square meters and 130 employees, and promptly began a new phase of development. Over several years of dedication, inspiration, and sheer hard work, Pietro oversaw an expansion to much larger facilities, with employees numbering 1,500. Despite the difficulties the Beretta family and their company lived through and prospered during the World Wars I and II. Pietro made sure that the company had its own source of energy. He built an innovative hydroelectric plant on the banks of the Mella River, with one of its turbines within a tunnel for emergency situations, such as wartime. It was his idea, also, to establish a proof house in Gardone which, he properly theorized, would make the Italian manufacturers competitive on a European level.
As World War I loomed, the demand for sporting arms had drastically dropped, however in 1915, orders for handguns had begun to come in from the Italian Royal Army. Beretta had contracted to produce one thousand barrels for the Fiat Model 1914 machine gun. Beretta’s success in this venture, combined with an awareness that the war would be long, resulted in the firm’s decision to design new military arms. The first to come to fruition was a patented conversion of the Vetterli Model 70 and the Model 70-87 rifles and carbines for use with the regulation Model 1891 cartridge.
Pietro had the help of the brilliant inventor and designer, Tullio Marengoni, who’s creative run of new products began with the hammerless shotgun in the first decade of the twentieth century and covered nearly every important Beretta firearm until circa 1960. Pietro Beretta provided the leadership that was essential in guiding Marengoni to create new firearms and in turning Marengoni’s inventions into practical reality. It was Marengoni who developed the Beretta Model 1915 automatic pistol, which was adopted by the Italian Royal Army, and which by the end of the war was being produced at an astounding rate of 4,200 per month. Marengoni went on to develop the first true submachine gun, the Model 1918 automatic carbine.
As World War II began, the Italian government contracted with Beretta for military arms. Included were orders for the Model 1934 automatic pistol and a new Beretta automatic rifle, the MAB38A. When the Italian government collapsed in 1943, German SS troops occupied the Beretta plant to supervise production. Although Pietro and his sons Pier Giuseppe and Carlo were under constant suspicion, somehow firearms made their way into the hands of partisans. At one point, Carlo was imprisoned for two weeks awaiting transport to an extermination camp. Only his importance to continued production at the Beretta factory saved him. When Gardone was bombed in 1944, the factory suffered heavy damage. Fortunately, the machinery had been moved into tunnels in the mountain side and had survived. At the close of the war, German troops placed Pietro Beretta under arrest. He was rescued by a determined band of partisans, who in the process captured several prisoners. Pietro Beretta could well have been summarily executed by the Nazis. His survival allowed Pietro to spearhead the company’s post war revival.
Following Italy’s surrender to the Allies, Beretta was able to recommence production of shotguns, beginning the long process of recovery from the ravages of war. Partly using the machinery that had been protected in the mountain side tunnels, Pietro Beretta transformed the post war firm into a modern, streamlined manufacturing enterprise, with up to date equipment and administration. His death on May 1st 1957 truly marked the end of an era.
If Pietro is remembered as an empire builder, then his sons Pier Giuseppe and Carlo earned for that empire international status as arguably the leading producer of a comprehensive line of small arms of a variety of types, both civilian and military.
Over the years a number of new products joined the Beretta line, among them the BM59, a modified Garand rifle in 7.62 NATO with semi and full automatic capability. The revisions were achieved by Beretta in only three months, in contrast to the twelve years required for the U.S. Ordnance to develop the basically identical M14. Among other milestones firearms are the Model 1951 pistol, the PM12 submachine gun, the AR70 military rifle, and the expanded SO series of deluxe over and under shotguns.
In 1975 Beretta introduced perhaps its most famous firearm of all times. The 9mm Model 92 auto loading pistol. It was quickly adopted by the Brazilian Police do Esercito, and later by the Italian police and military. Over the next twenty-five years the Model 92 became the sidearm of choice for the French Gendarmerie Nationale, the U.S. armed forces, and more than 1,600 law enforcement agencies in North America alone. The U.S. armed forces adopted the Model 92 on April 10th 1985. This phenomenal firearm won out over numerous other major firearms manufacturers such as; Smith & Wesson, Colt, Heckler & Koch, Sig Sauer, Walther, and Styer, by consistently surpassing all of the requirements imposed by the U.S. military through an arduous testing process.
When Carlo Beretta died on March 5th 1984 at the age of seventy-six, at least ten thousand mourners paid tribute. Honoring a man of the Valley, citizens lined the streets of Gardone while his coffin was borne from the family villa to his final resting place. A tribute to a man, a family, a company, and a firearm that is renowned in the annals of history, Beretta.
Lieutenant Vince Testa #302
Commanding Officer
Firearms Identification Unit
843-849 North 8th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123-2001
Autumn is finally here and all I can think about is the bountiful autumn harvest. Images of cornucopia overflowing with pumpkins and squash fill my mind. Here in America, we have a tendency to think of the autumn harvest more as decoration. We think of the Indian Corn that we hang on our doors or the little pumpkins and gourds that we place on our desks. In Italy, however, the autumn harvest means the return of fantastic seasonal foods that are only available this time of year.
