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Beretta SpA

Italian company
Also known as: Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta SpA
Written and fact-checked byThe Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.
Table of Contents
in full:
Fabbrica D’armi Pietro Beretta SpA (Italian: “Pietro Beretta Arms Works Limited”)
Headquarters:
Milan
Areas Of Involvement:
shooting
binoculars
gun
armed force

Beretta SpA, Italian-based manufacturer of sporting, military, and personal firearms, one of the world’s oldest industrial enterprises. It has affiliates in France, Greece, and the United States. Headquarters are in Gardone Val Trompia, near Milan, Italy.

The founder of the business, Bartolomeo Beretta, was known as a maestro da canne, or master gun-barrel maker, for the republic of Venice as early as 1526. His son Giovannino inherited his father’s work in Gardone Val Trompia, and thereafter the family business was handed down over the centuries in an unbroken chain from fathers to sons or, more lately, nephews. Pietro Beretta (1791–1853), after furnishing gun barrels for Napoleon’s conquering armies, decided after the peace of 1815 to turn to the manufacture of whole weapons and diversified into sporting guns. Another Pietro Beretta (1870–1957) introduced modern production techniques and more than trebled the company’s factory space. By the late 20th century the company was being directed by 12th and 13th generations of the Beretta family.

The company manufactures and markets, worldwide, arms for hunters, competition shooters, law-enforcement officers, and military personnel; the products include field and high-grade sporting shotguns, rifles, pistols, military arms, knives, and such accessories as sights and scopes and binoculars.