Remo Salvinelli is generally reckoned one of the two reigning geniuses of the Italian best-gun trade. His list of accomplishments and patents as gun designer at FAMARS during the past 34 years is astounding. It includes Boss-style O/Us with pinless locks, self-cocking hammerguns, two versions of four-barreled shotguns, Dickson and Westley Richards lookalikes, and a patented detachable-lock gun. He has also designed a best sidelock over/under for perhaps the world's most famous gunmaker. Today FAMARS has 15 models in production and makes more than 100 guns per year - not including those it builds for other gunmakers - under the Abbiatico & Salvinelli name.
Although FAMARS undoubtedly helped put best-quality Italian gunmaking on the map, the extent of its influence could hardly be predicted when Abbiatico and Salvinelli formed their partnership in 1967. Both men were products of the Val Trompia gun trade: Salvinelli's father, Felice, was an engraver in Brescia, whereas Abbiatico's father, Giuseppe, was an actioner.
Though we invariably associate best Italian guns with the area around Brescia and Gardone, for most of the 20th Century this wasn't necessarily the case. Instead, many of Italy's finest boutique gunmakers were located in Emilia Romagna, not the Val Trompia. With a few notable exceptions, gunmaking in Gardone until the 1960s focused more on military small arms and utility, and medium-grade sporting guns, basic Anson & Deeley boxlocks, Merkel-type over/unders, and inexpensive hammerguns.
A glance at one of the earliest FAMARS catalogs confirms this. Initial A&S models included the Saturno 350 EA, a midgrade scalloped-back A&D made in 12 and 20 gauges; and the Plutone Export 632, a midgrade boxlock O/U of modest pedigree. FAMARS "best" gun in the early days was the Giove Gran Premio 700 EA, a sistema Merkel over/under with underbites and double Greener crosbolts. All were built on bought-in actions.
Abbiatico and Salvinelli might have remained happy building medium-grade guns except for a fateful meeting in 1967 with a prospective American client named Joe Bojalad. Bojalad had gone to Beretta looking for an over/under with interchangeable .410/28/20-gauge barrels. Because its famous SO series guns were then only made in 12 gauge, Beretta recommended Bojalad take a look at the fledgling FAMARS firm. Abbiatico & Salvinelli appeared eager to meet the challenge, and Bojalad told them to "spare nothing" on the engraving. The finished three-barreled Giove was built on a 28-gauge frame and the superstar Italian engraver was born: bulino engraving was "it" for high-art guns, Abbiatico and Bojalad could take much of the credit for helping get the ball rolling.
In addition to being an excellent salesman and administrator, Mario Abbiatico was also a prolific writer, and he tirelessly promoted his engravers' talents in books and articles. In 1978 he published a seminal book on engraving, Grande Incisione su Armi d'oggi. His 1980 English-language edition, Modern Firearms Engraving, greatly added to the mystique of Italy's artisans.
Through the early '70s FAMARS sold guns of wide-ranging quality. By 1975, though, Abbiatico and Salvinelli decided to concentrate solely on best-quality guns. From that point guns would be marked Abbiatico & Salvinelli, though FAMARS was retained as the company name. Mario himself was a hammergun devotee, and he and Salvinelli turned their attention to making a best-quality version. "At that time in Brescia the hammergun was mostly considered a cheap, even outdated, design", Salvinelli said. Their new Castore hammergun was anything but. For one thing it was a novel self-cocking sidelock with a single trigger, ejectors and a top safety. It was also built to beautiful standards, with sensuous Italian aesthetics. It was a radical departure from any hammerguns being built at the time. During this time the company also unveiled the Quattrocanne, a unique four-barreled smallbore. A limited run of 30 guns was made - 15 in 28 gauge and the rest in .410.
The Quattrocanne was a hybrid boxlock (internal tumblers for the lower barrels) and sidelock (external hammers for the upper barrels), with a single trigger that fired all four tubes. Though the Castore and Quattrocanne were overtly Italian in aesthetics and design, Abbiatico and Salvinelli were unabashedly influenced by the designs and quality of vintage British guns. The result, in the late '70s, was the Jorema, a best Boss-type sidelock O/U. The Venus, a best sidelock side-by-side, appeared around 1980. Its predecessor, the Venere, featured classic Holland & Holland-type bar-action locks, but Salvinelli soon developed and patented pinless back-action locks, which became standard on the Venus and, eventually, the Jorema. (The name Jorema, incidentally, is a contraction of JOe [Bojalad], REmo and MArio.)
In the mid-'80s A&S paid homage to a pair of Britain's best makers with the Tribute and the Zeus, the latter a round-body Anson & Deeley that mimicked the svelte lines of a Dickson round-action. To achieve the rounded shape, Salvinelli moved the locks toward the center of the action, slimming down the mainsprings and tumblers. This left more metal on the sides of the action, allowing it to be filed rounder at the lower edges and across the bottom. Equally impressive was the Tribute, a copy of the Westley Richards hand-detachable “droplock". Even today the WR hand-detachable remains an exceptionally difficult gun to make and a challenge to any gunmaker’s skills.
Unfortunately, the Tribute and Zeus would be the Iast guns that Abbiatico had a hand in. In 1984, at the age of 50, he died of cancer. His premature death could bave been the end of the partnership between the Abbiatico and Salvinelli families, but for Cristina Abbiatico, Mario’s eldest child. At the age of 18 she stepped forward to fill his shoes. Seventeen years later she continues to fili them. To accomplish this in a male-dominated industry (and culture) is no small achievement. Cristina has been joined by her brother, Paolo, who works as a finisher, and younger sister, Elena, who operates the firm's new CNC machines. Salvinelli's only child, Elisabetta, has recently joined Cristina in the front office. FAMARS is a family affair in the truest sense. In the late ninties Mr Bernd Steinhausen, a German business man and a gun lover, joined the company. And Remo, ever the visionary, has kept on innovating. Later guns include the Rombo .410, an updated version of the Quattro, still a four-shooter, but this time with its barrels in a trapezoid configuration. Boxlock and sidelock express rifles have appeared, and the Jorema has been modified. Around 1990 FAMARS introduced the Excalibur, with Salvinelli's patented detachable triggerplate lockwork. Since then it has evolved into several variations: a sideplated version (the Excalibur BLX), a true sidelock (the Excalibur SL) and an over/under rifle (the Excalibur Express), available with or without sideplates. The latest incarnation is a sleek round-body (the Excalibur BL Round). The newest sidelock O/Us are the Pegasus and the Sovereign, that feature new patented mechanisms.

Asking Mr Salvinelli "Which of guns that you have designed are you most proud of?"
"They are a new sidelock O/U and S/S with the lockwork configured on the removable trigger plate" and then he added "...The best things we have done are what we will do!"