Ready for a trip to Italy? I hope so because today I’m going to talk to you about Brebbia Pipes.

Let me introduce you to our main character: Enea Buzzi, founder of the Brebbia Pipes Company. He had in his family many entrepreneurs: his uncle Bernardo, who made a fortune in London, his grandfather, who built a small power plant in Brebbia; and his father, Carlo Andrea, who founded a weaving mill in Gavirate.

Enea was in Varese’s train station and was smoking a Rossi pipe, and it started to pour. He wondered how he could smoke while under the rain, and that’s how the pipe with a lid idea was born. The Rossi family developed this concept and started producing their take. After different business attempts, Enea was still not happy, and he decided to focus on his passion and produce tobacco pipes. Money was short, which meant expensive machines and a location for his company were not easy to achieve.

That’s where Uncle Bernardo came to play in this story. “Papa” Bernardo, as his family called him, backed up his nephew’s dream. He didn’t bring to the table only the money but also a meaningful family connection: his niece, who was married to Achille Savinelli. The Savinelli family was also looking into opening their tobacco pipes production, but that’s for another time.

In 1947 Enea and Achille founded a tobacco pipe company, but the partnership didn’t last long. The business couple didn’t share the same vision for the company. Enea went to London to establish his name in the international market, and Achille founded his factory in Molina di Barrasso.

From 1947 Enea made pipes using the Savinelli logo, but after 1953 he started using his own trademark MPB (Manifattura Pipe Brebbia). The following year, a fire destroyed the Brebbia factory, which allowed him to build a bigger one. Enea also bought a foundry to develop an aluminum base for his pipes, but the market didn’t respond well to that.

In 1956 the bumpy partnership ended between Enea and Achille, and a new prosperous era started for MPB Pipes. Innovation, diversification, and imagination were the keywords.

Christian