The five hundred years of Beretta: history and evolution of the gunsmith dynasty

Bang bang. Half a millennium of shooting and fifteen generations - with the sixteenth already appearing on the scene - passing the company down from father to son. Beretta's round birthday - precisely five hundred years from that contract of 3 October 1526 in which master Bartolomeo Beretta received 296 ducats to supply 185 arquebus barrels to the Arsenal of the Republic of Venice - is not actually a real birthday.

In fact, the sixteenth-century workshop must have already been very well established to earn an order of this magnitude from the Serenissima, and therefore there are more years to count. But the calendar matters up to a certain point. What matters is that the arms factory of Gardone Val Trompia today exceeds half a millennium still in the hands of Bartolomeo's descendants: an almost unparalleled case in the history of industrial capitalism, undoubtedly the result of the family's entrepreneurial skills, but perhaps also of a production whose demand seems to know no crisis.

The mines of Val Trompia

However, it is best to forget about guns, rifles and ammunition for a moment and look at the factory. Because behind and around the Beretta there is first and foremost its territory. Already centuries ago, Val Trompia had iron mines, wood to fuel the foundry ovens and above all the water from the Mella river to provide energy for the processes. And in the sixteenth century production was organized through a network of specialized workshops, family ties and corporations that stretched from Gardone towards Brescia following the course of the river.

The modern factory did not yet exist, but the district, the division of labor and that wealth of skills that economists would later call know-how already existed. Master Bartolomeo Beretta was inside this world. And his descendants will remain there for centuries - between high craftsmanship and an industrial district without yet a real industry - until in the nineteenth century Pietro Antonio Beretta gives shape to the modern company and in 1832 registers the name Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta. His son Giuseppe Antonio accelerates modernization: he introduces new machines, integrates previously dispersed processes and pushes into international markets.

The First World War

It is only the first of many skin changes; after all, five hundred years of business cannot be experienced without transformations. At the beginning of the twentieth century Pietro Beretta further modernized the factory; semi-automatic pistols and military products arrive, but also civilian weapons. During the First World War – easy to imagine – orders increased dramatically. In the 1930s new public orders and mass production arrived.

The war in Ethiopia and then the Italian intervention in Spain are tragedies for those who suffer them, but business for those who manufacture the weapons that will be used on those fronts. It is no coincidence, therefore, that 1945 marks the darkest moment in the company's recent history: orders plummet, the peace treaty signed by Italy imposes strong limits on the war industry and the Gardone factories suddenly find themselves with too many men and too many plants. In 1946 the Brescia arms industry as a whole employed around 6,500 people; between 40 and 50 percent of the workforce is considered surplus to production needs. Beretta and Bernardelli, the two companies that constitute the industrial backbone of the district, were temporarily placed under controlled management by the Allies.

The automotive parenthesis

It was then that even at Beretta they tried to make a virtue of necessity: in 1948 Giuseppe Pietro Beretta, Giuseppe Benelli and Count Guglielmo Castelbarco Albani filed two patents for a car. The project is called BBC, it involves a 750 cc four-seater that can reach one hundred kilometers per hour. It was destined for the popular car market that Fiat would conquer a few years later with the 600 and 500. Between 1948 and 1949, three BBC prototypes were built. Then nothing happens.

Legend tells of a stop coming from Turin; it is more likely that the leap towards the car proved to be too complex and expensive. Beretta then concentrated on Mi-Val, founded in the Brescia area by Ettore Minganti, a Bolognese industrialist who was very involved with fascism: it produced motorcycles, machine tools and even a microcar, the Mivalino and it continued until the 1960s. The gunsmith dynasty also invests with the American Underwood in a project to produce office machines. It didn't go well: the investment didn't last long and in 1959 the majority share passed to Olivetti.

The return to the origins

In the end, the most successful diversification is the least adventurous one: returning to the skills accumulated for centuries and adapting them to a different market. The Brescia district is in fact moving towards civil and sporting weapons. A constellation of small specialized producers is reborn around the larger companies. Beretta and Bernardelli are the pivot of a decentralized, flexible but hierarchical system, in which skills, processes and knowledge circulate throughout the territory.

In the case of Beretta it also means maintaining capabilities that are needed for the military sector when the military restarts. Italy's entry into NATO in 1949 reopened opportunities and in the following years the company obtained orders for the armies of the Alliance and produced the Garand M1 semi-automatic rifle under American license. That order also had an industrial effect: tighter tolerances and full interchangeability of components forced Beretta to innovate machinery and organization of production. Yet another decisive transformation took place in 1985, when the order arrived that changed the size and international reputation of the brand: Beretta won the competition for the new service pistol of the US armed forces, even surpassing American names such as Colt and Smith & Wesson. The total supply will be 600 thousand pieces: an excellent deal, but above all a seal of guarantee that is valid throughout the world. Beretta Holding was born in 1994 and the family began to build a truly multinational group around the parent company through acquisitions and different brands.

Beretta today

Today, therefore, the Cinquecento workshop is a group that has a turnover of 1.68 billion euros and has more than six thousand employees. However, the Beretta Arms Factory in Gardone remains the symbolic heart of history. In 2025 it reached 336 million in revenues and for 2026 it is aiming for 350 million. The two souls of the product also coexist there: connected machine tools, predictive maintenance, micron controls and lines that work up to three shifts on one side; on the other, woods chosen one by one, knurling workers and engravers who can dedicate up to a thousand hours to decorating a single piece, which will end up in the multi-millionaire hands of those who can afford to go hunting with a treasure.