Hasta La Ideas

Italian firearms manufacturer Beretta has unveiled a shotgun designed to honor Marco Polo.

The unusual one-off, meant to celebrate Polo’s legacy as the explorer who connected Europe and Asia, took some 2,000 hours to craft; made of walnut with copper inlays, it features hand-engraved depictions of Polo’s travels.

The piece is based on Beretta’s SO6 EELL Sparviere platform, an over-and-under design for hunting and sport shooting. “Sparviere” means “sparrowhawk” in Italian; it references the unique design of this platform, where the side plates open like that bird’s wings.

As for why the gun was made: “As a company, we try to follow Marco Polo’s attitude to explore: we spend our existence pushing our boundaries and expanding our horizons, we research to find always new solutions, techniques and materials and provide hunters and shooters with innovative and unconventional products,” says Beretta CEO Carlo Ferlito. “The craftsmen of our Pietro Beretta Selection atelier managed to astound us again with this unique shotgun, going beyond the limits of their immense skills and showing us something unprecedented.”