Founded in Gardone Val Trompia outside Milan in 1526, Beretta, the world’s oldest firearms maker, will celebrate its 500th anniversary next year while still employing principles of gunsmithing handed down from the days of the Renaissance. A half-century since Bartolomeo Beretta built his first harquebus barrel for the Venice Arsenal, Beretta Holding recently became the world’s largest firearms company as well, earning $1.7 billion in revenue in 2024.
Over the decades, Beretta has made guns for everyone from Napoleon and Winston Churchill to Ernest Hemingway and James Bond. In 2021, the company acquired historic luxury gun and clothing manufacturer Holland & Holland from Chanel; in 2022, Beretta expanded into ammunition with the purchase of Ammotec, Europe’s largest ammunition maker, which Beretta Holding CEO Pietro Beretta—a 15th-generation descendant of the Beretta founders—described as “our biggest acquisition yet.” The Ammotec deal alone “added $600 million to Beretta Holding’s annual sales,” Forbes noted, “helping it overtake Sig Sauer and Smith & Wesson and adding several NATO militaries to its roster of customers.”
The magazine estimates that Beretta Holding, which is 100 percent owned by Pietro Beretta, his father Ugo, and his brother Franco, is now worth $2.2 billion. “Add in the family’s vineyards, homes and investments, and the trio shares an estimated $2.7 billion fortune,” Forbes points out. The company, based in Luxembourg, now owns 19 brands operating in 23 countries on five continents, yet essentially remains a family business.
“We have something that others don’t and that they’ll never have: a single family owner,” as Pietro told Forbes. “When we need to deal with foreign governments, it’s me or my brother meeting the president. That’s not the case with other businesses. [And] we have a long-term vision that isn’t speculative.” From sleek, black handguns carried by citizens and soldiers alike to gold-inlaid, six-figure shotguns that are highly prized by hunters and collectors around the globe, “the Beretta name carries instant prestige that speaks of skill, craftsmanship, elegant design and deadly accuracy,” as a 2016 Maxim magazine article put it.
“The Beretta experience was born from five centuries of making the world’s best firearms, a synthesis of cutting-edge technology and the craftsmanship of generations of highly skilled workers,” as Ugo Beretta said at the time, “all under one roof in the Beretta factory.” Beretta constantly proves its worth in the field, in all senses. At the 2024 Olympic Games, marksmen wielding Beretta shotguns won 93 percent of all medals in their disciplines.
While it has mastered commercial production on a grand scale, Beretta has never lost sight of its commitment to handmade craftsmanship, and its one-off bespoke shotguns represent the equivalent of coachbuilt luxury automobiles in the firearms world, incomparable and unequaled. Nearly every year, Beretta creates a commemorative firearm honoring historical figures and milestones. The Beretta 486 Copernicus, designed in 2023 to celebrate the 550th birthday of the father of modern astronomy, for example, was valued at $550,000, while the 2024 edition was dedicated to Marco Polo, the famed Venetian explorer.
“The Marco Polo PB Selection shotgun is an ode to a brave traveler who wasn’t afraid to face new cultures and people, an explorer who opened his arms and eyes to the wonder of the world, but always remaining tied to his homeland,” noted Franco Beretta. “This is the same spirit of Beretta: we bring our products around the globe, but our heart remains here, in Gardone Val Trompia, the only place where we are able to create unique pieces of engineering art.”
The connection between Marco Polo and Beretta runs deeper than inspiration. “The Beretta celebrative one-offs always have a link with our history: Venice, Marco Polo’s place of birth, was where in the 1980s we found Bartolomeo Beretta’s invoice for the Republic of Venice, the document that allowed us to track the existence of our company back to 1526, and which will allow us to celebrate our 500th anniversary in 2026,” the brand notes.
The Marco Polo shotgun, built on the brand’s SO6 EELL Sparviere 12-gauge over-and-under platform, required 1,500 hours of hand-engraving and another 500 hours of work by master gunsmiths, stock and gun-case makers. The design features sailing and exploration themes, with copper-inlaid compass roses, diamond and star patterns, and engravings depicting Marco Polo’s journeys from Venice to the Mongolian steppes. The handmade gun case is finished in bright yellow leather with a print of a medieval map of the known world at the time of its namesake’s explorations, complete with blue leather details on the edges and handle and an interior of Venetian red silk.
“As a company, we try to follow Marco Polo’s attitude to explore,” notes Carlo Ferlito, General Manager & CEO of Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta. “We spend our existence pushing our boundaries and expanding our horizons. We research to find always new solutions, techniques and materials and provide hunters and shooters with innovative and unconventional products.”
The SO Sparviere is the “perfect platform for this celebrative piece,” Ferlito notes, “a traditional, exclusive mechanism that was transformed by Beretta to create something outstanding and surprising, with the side plates opening like the wings of a bird. The craftsmen of our Pietro Beretta Selection atelier managed to astound us again with this unique shotgun, going beyond the limits of their immense skills and showing us something unprecedented.”
The commemorative series demonstrates Beretta’s commitment to both craftsmanship and cultural celebration. Previous editions have honored Leonardo da Vinci (2019), Dante Alighieri (2021), and the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb (2022), each representing the intersection of art, history, and engineering excellence. Next year, on the occasion of Beretta’s quincentennial, we expect to see the most beautiful and expensive bespoke shotgun the storied firm has ever created. While no details have been released just yet, this could well be the first million-dollar Beretta shotgun the world has ever seen.
This article originally appeared in Maxim’s Winter 2025 issue.
