FAMILY BUSINESS

THIS PAGE: Montegrappa’s limited edition Animalia fountain pen (2004), with animals etched by hand. OPPOSITE: the northern Italian town of Bassano del Grappa, where Montegrappa has its factory on the bank of the River Brenta The Exquisite Art of Writing The third generation of his family to head Italian pen makers Montegrappa, Giuseppe Aquila is defying the digital age with fountain pens that can sell for tens of thousands of dollars. Here, he reveals his winning formula for a company steeped in heritage

By Mark C O’Flaherty Photography by Julian Anderson

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OPPOSITE: From left: Gianfranco Aquila, Chairman of Montegrappa; hand-etched barrels. THIS PAGE: Clockwise from above left: crafting the Ernest Hemingway The Soldier pen (2016); pen rods made of celluloid colored with pigment; the town’s 13th-century bridge spanning the river

Handling one of the most perfect, remarkably designed ink pens on shoots, the social media and the influencer marketing campaigns for the planet is a particularly emotional experience. Montegrappa, an the brand. This is how a heritage brand stays successful in the Italian, family-owned company founded in 1912, creates work that 21st century. “I filter every graphic and all the photographic work for elevates the experience to peerless levels. And business is booming. Montegrappa with the visual aesthetic I believe represents the The picturesque town of Bassano del Grappa, where Montegrappa brand and our values,” Diana explains. “At times, I get in touch with is based, is just over an hour inland from Venice, in a region well influencers personally; other times, we rely on specialized agencies. known for its fine craft in silver and goldsmithing. Montegrappa There’s not a specific target influencer for us – what inspires me shares many similarities with those industries. The ingrained is a creative personality and good taste.” culture of the local craftsmanship aside, most of the products the Diana, along with other members of the family, also offers ideas company produces are made in sterling silver or solid gold. for future designs, but the main creative direction originates with Montegrappa’s narrative arc over the past 20 years has been as Giuseppe. “I am the conceptualizer,” he says. “I come up with the florid as calligraphy. Today, things are headed up by 49-year-old majority of the ideas for new designs, and then I work with our Giuseppe Aquila, who joined the business in 1992 to work alongside designers on the engineering. Research and development are big his father Gianfranco. Annual turnover stands at $17 million areas of our business: we are always experimenting with new (€15.1 million), with a minimum of 10 percent growth each year for technology, techniques and materials.” the past decade, while the company’s key markets are the US, the Today, Montegrappa combines state-of-the-art technology at its Middle East and its home territory of Italy. Veneto factory with the expertise of 55 full-time craftsmen. And the Giuseppe works at the HQ with his father, who is the company's company’s contemporary business model relies on the skills of those Chairman and takes care of finance, his mother Diana, who is individuals more than any high-tech sorcery. “There are many luxury actively involved in production and quality control, and his daughter, pen makers,” says Giuseppe, “but we employ entirely unique materials, also Diana, 26, futureproofing a business that thrives despite being manufacturing processes and techniques. We use a lot of etching, – to all intents and purposes – an anachronism, though a captivating painting, low-relief engraving and enameling. All of it is done by hand.” one. “I’ve always loved this world. We all do,” he says. “My grandfather The biggest twist in the way Montegrappa operates took place loved the company because he was a chemist, and was so fascinated during the year Giuseppe committed to working in the family by pens that he made his own inks. He asked the people at [local pen makers] Elmo to make pens for him under his own name. The family that owned the company didn’t have children, which is part of the “My grandfather loved the reason we ended up taking it over.” Giuseppe has fond memories of his parents walking him to the factory as a child, and spending company because he was a whole days immersed in the culture of it: “They would get me to do chemist, and was so fascinated by little jobs, like put the springs in the ballpoint pens.” Giuseppe’s daughter’s role would not have existed when his pens that he made his own inks” parents ran the factory – she is a fashion stylist who directs all the Giuseppe Aquila, CEO, Montegrappa

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“Because of the tradition of LEFT: the view towards families working with gold and the mountains from Bassano del Grappa. ABOVE: Diana silver in the Vicenza Province, Aquila, daughter of Giuseppe, who looks after that kind of craft is in the DNA Montegrappa’s social media of the people who live here”

business full time. It was when, to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the company in 1992, they first proposed to create a limited-edition sterling silver pen. A total of 1,912 pieces were produced, with highly ornate and precise leaf patterns detailed on each facet of the body and cap. This limited-edition business model is now responsible for 54 percent of the company’s sales. Consider the parallels with the art and fine furniture markets. If merchandising and industrially produced mass-market furniture generate a certain profit margin at a certain volume, then, for example, a limited edition of silkscreens, or an edition chair by Marc Newson, represents a different kind of business model – one that relies on far fewer customers with an infinitely higher single spend. You can buy a Montegrappa Parola ballpoint for the same price as a pair of Nike trainers, but you can also sign up to pre-order one of the 500 Leonardo Da Vinci 500th Anniversary fountain or rollerball pens from the Genio Creativo series, finished in brass and olive wood, with a marvelous machine-inspired graphic lid, for over 20 times as much. “For the limited editions, the sky is the limit,” says Giuseppe. “We have some solid gold limited editions of the Samurai design that retail for $146,000 (€130,000).” If these limited editions represent the core of the business, customization is something that is growing fast. Many clients opt for what Montegrappa calls Extra Bespoke. “We are already able to customize pens with our online configurator ordering [system], via 200,000 possible combinations. But when we are talking about Extra Bespoke, our craftsmen hand-paint or engrave an image from a client on the barrel.” Then there is the Arte model, aimed at collectors of fine art: “Someone will provide us with an image of an artwork they own, and one of our artists will reproduce it on their pen, using just the naked eye and a brush. It takes about three months to finish.” Giuseppe had grown up, as the family joke goes, with “ink in his blood”. His grandfather, Leopoldo Tullio Aquila, was a stationery merchant. Ever since the 1930s, he had worked closely with the

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THIS PAGE: From top: Giuseppe Aquila, CEO of Montegrappa; an unfinished elaborate cap for the Lord of the Rings design (2019). OPPOSITE: Bassano del Grappa; a hand-painted pen cap replicating work by the painter Giovanni Boldini

local pen manufacturer Elmo. Leopoldo was a close friend of the color pigment – which can include mother-of-pearl – is introduced brand’s founders Alessandro Marzotto and Edwige Hoffmann. into it. The paste is baked in a tray for a whole year, and only then can When Giuseppe’s father Gianfranco bought Elmo in 1981 – having the craftsmen start to process it for use, cutting it into round rods long since established himself as its largest customer – it took the before drilling. Apparently, the material is so durable it will not name of Montegrappa. shatter if it is thrown from the top of the Empire State Building. Under the exclusive auspices of the Aquila family, the brand “When we work on the launch of a new color in celluloid, it takes made serious inroads into a new luxury market for pen craft. So three years before we can actually make the pen,” says Giuseppe. much so that it attracted the attention of Richemont, which counts “But it’s like a good wine – you have to wait.” Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Montblanc as part of its global Montegrappa has a long list of loyal customers who are prepared portfolio of luxury brands. In 2000, Montegrappa joined that portfolio. to pre-order and wait. When each new limited edition is ready for Then in 2009, the Aquila family took it back with the assistance of sale, 60 to 70 percent of the pens are already spoken for. And close friends and investors, who included the actor Sylvester Stallone the secondary market is buoyant. The first limited editions from the and Formula One driver Jean Alesi. The culture of the company Dragon series, launched in 1995, have increased five times in value. changed instantly, and with it came a new focus and purpose. While the Dragon pens come with auction estimates of $35,000 “We wanted to stay away from industrialization,” says Giuseppe. to $50,000 (€31,000 to €44,000), they cannot compare with the “We wanted to take things back to the original spirit and develop Montegrappa-made, Tibaldi-branded Fulgor Nocturnus, which sold limited editions and bespoke products. It was frustrating for at auction in Shanghai in 2010. Adorned with 2,058 black diamonds somebody who has always been used to working in a family business, and 139 rubies, this pen went under the hammer for $8.7 million where decisions are made within a very small group of people, to (€7.16 million) and remains the most expensive pen ever sold. then have to work with a committee.” Montegrappa bought Florence pen makers Tibaldi in 2004. The Montegrappa business model continues to change. The While craft and materials play their part in the aura of family wants to create fewer units and a more rarefied product. Montegrappa, the family business trades on the resonance the brand Their factory, on the bank of the River Brenta, close to the town’s has had through history. Pope John Paul II wrote with a Montegrappa 13th-century bridge, cannot expand significantly. And acquiring the pen, and Boris Yeltsin passed his Dragon pen to Vladimir Putin as a craftsmen needed to maintain quality is difficult. “We have an symbol of the passing on of the presidency of Russia. Most famously, internal program of training for younger craftsmen,” says Giuseppe, author Ernest Hemingway wrote using a Montegrappa pen. He lived “but it’s hard. Because of where we are, and the tradition of families in Bassano del Grappa for a period during World War One while working with gold and silver in the Vicenza Province, that kind he was serving as a volunteer ambulance driver – and is strongly of craft is already in the DNA of the people who live around here – it’s connected with the brand. In a tribute to the author, and in association not an alien world to them. But we have to face the fact that with Hemingway’s grandson John, Montegrappa launched a Mightier it’s difficult to recruit younger people and convince them that this is Than the Sword collection in 2016. the right job for them.” Though few great writers of literary fiction in the 21st century If Giuseppe is finding it difficult to recruit a new generation work exclusively with pen and paper, Giuseppe believes there is of craftsmen to join the four generations of Aquilas who have been, or a solid future both for ink and for Montegrappa. “We know that still are, responsible for Montegrappa, there is no shortage of offers millennials are using pens,” he says. “There is a need to detox from from potential collaborators. The company is working on a project the digital world, and handwriting is very stimulating for the brain.” with NASA to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Moon This is not just conjecture from Giuseppe – he fed it through his usual landing. And having recalibrated its atelier as a place for the rigorous process of research and development, collaborating ultimate craft in handmade pens, without budgetary restraints, with the American neurologist and neuropsychiatrist Richard Montegrappa now works with fine jewelry brands. The company has Restak on the Brain pen, which features a stark body, yet has an also cornered the market for collaborations with certain luxury apposite, visually complex cap. “We discovered he was a collector,” automobile manufacturers. “Private-label projects are great because says Giuseppe, “and I was fascinated by the fact that he was writing they put us in touch with designers from different industries,” says all of his books with a fountain pen. We talked and he explained Giuseppe. “They bring new ideas and often get us to use new to me how handwriting stimulates the brain in the way that materials. Working with car manufacturers has let us experiment a keyboard doesn’t.” with carbon fiber, titanium and magnesium.” Like so many heritage mills, tailors, shoemakers, ceramicists The main materials that Montegrappa is known for are found in and parfumiers across the country, there is something about an its most sculptural pieces, such as the Samurai pen, a $13,000 (€11,500) Italian family business that guarantees a level of devotion to craft figurine with fully movable parts made from sterling silver and that is harder for a corporation to achieve. For Giuseppe, his life plated with rose gold, which was introduced in 2018. Then there is could not have taken any other direction. “I never felt like I had an the celluloid that is used in the body of the Dragon pen, with the option,” he says. “My father made that very clear to me. And while “We know that millennials are using gold or silver iconography set over it. Montegrappa is unusual in its my daughter has the freedom to do whatever she wants, she loves the pens. There is a need to detox from continued use of celluloid, a material notoriously difficult to brand and the family tradition, and she enjoys bringing her expertise manufacture and work with. While it is technically a resin, it into our world. It’s still the Italian family business model, but it’s the digital world, and handwriting originates from cotton fiber, which is ground down before a natural a new way of working.” is very stimulating for the brain”

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OPPOSITE AND THIS PAGE: limited edition Moon Landing fountain pens (2019), in titanium and gold (opposite) and resin and silver, made in collaboration with NASA to mark the 50th anniversary of the landing of Apollo II

“Private-label projects are great because they put us in touch with designers from different industries. They bring new ideas and often get us to use new materials”

UNDER THE HAMMER 2005 ETERNAL BIRD FOUNTAIN PEN AND INKWELL Sold for $43,750 (around €33,600) in June 2013, this pen, Montegrappa pens have become collectors’ items. in 18-karat solid yellow gold, is an artist’s proof of a Here are some of the limited editions that have made limited edition of 10, conceived as a successor to the their mark at auction over the years: Montegrappa Dragon. It has 244 diamonds and phoenix eyes set with rubies, while the casing is marbled red 1997 RED SEA FOUNTAIN PEN celluloid offset with gold overlay. Sold for 40,000 Hong Kong dollars (around $5,000; €3,800) in November 2013. Numbered 368 of a limited 2010 BRUCE LEE DRAGON edition of 888, this pen has a body and cap made of FOUNTAIN PEN celluloid with mother-of-pearl. It is decorated with Sold for $31,250 (around €24,000) in June 2013. Made as Ancient Egyptian-style imagery in vermeil, including an homage to Hong Kong’s celebrated 20th-century a scarab with pink sapphire-set eyes, while the nib is screen idol, the 18-karat yellow gold pen features a 18-karat white gold. cinnamon-veined red celluloid body and a nib engraved with a silhouette of Bruce Lee. The pen comes in a 2005 DRAGON FOUNTAIN PEN velvet drawstring bag with a brocaded silk pen-sleeve Sold for $43,750 (around €32,000) in June 2014. The and is numbered 70 from a limited edition of 88. existence of this artist’s proof – created to mark the 10th anniversary of the original Dragon design 2012 CHAOS FOUNTAIN PEN – was not public knowledge until it appeared at auction Sold for $8,500 (around €6,500) in December 2012. at Bonhams. It is made of celluloid and 18-karat yellow A collaboration with Sylvester Stallone, it incorporates gold, with blue sapphires. the skull imagery that dominated the star’s action movie The Expendables 2. The graphic elements of this pen, which was the first in a series, include lizards and snakes, and a fist wrapped around the handle of a sword. It is made of celluloid, silver and 18-karat gold.

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