The guiding principle

From the minutes of the board meeting of Pietro Beretta S.p.A. arms manufacturing company of 11/12/1981, first item on the agenda: “The setting up of the Beretta Foundation”.

“For a long time I have been thinking of a project, to be promoted by Beretta, that would give doctors (my age would suggest I should say young doctors) the opportunity to dedicate time and energy to research, to the collection and analysis of clinical and experimental data regarding cancer, indicating the most suitable type of chemotherapy for patients suffering from neoplasia, in particular, breast and lung cancer. Special attention will be given to studying methods of prevention and immunology. A few considerations will, I think, justify my idea.

The first is that it seems right that, whenever possible, a manufacturing company should be concerned about social and health factors in the world around; in this way we continue the tradition of the Beretta family in Gardone V.T. The second: it seems to me that medical research in this sector lacks data coming from experimentation, from statistics and from a link with what is going on elsewhere, which, in the eye of a manufacturer is the necessary basis for any kind of serious activity, whether it be industrial or scientific. And in this way a project started by those “outside the field” could be valuable.”

Cav. Pier Giuseppe Beretta
Chairman of Fabbrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta