Vincenzo Bernardelli originally made damascus twist shotgun barrels. Used water to power its machinery right up to the end of the 20th century. The company which exists today was founded in 1865 by Vincenzo Bernardelli with the establishment of a large factory with water-powered machinery. No explanation is given as to how the family name morphed from Barnelli to Bernardelli, but in 1721 some brothers Bernardelli are on record as purchasing a large gun factory in Gardone Val The following year Bartolino’s sister married his wife’s brother to further seal the tie between the two families. Several gun factories in Gardone Val Trompia.
The Bernardelli forebears entered the firearms business in 1631 when one Bartolino Barnelli married into the noble Acquisti family which owned Gardone Val Trompia, Brescia, Italy has been a center for iron working and weapons making since the middle ages, and of firearms manufacture since at least 1526 when Giovanni Antonio Beretta began
