Fiocchi U.S.A.

The Fiocchi empire began improbably with a bit of a splutter, born of a predecessor’s failure and a bank foreclosure. In the early 1800s Fiocchi family ancestors lived around Bologna, a thriving commercial and industrial center. Two of the men followed Napoleon’s army in his Italian campaign and took up residence in Milan. One of them, Giulio Fiocchi, became a bank manager and was fatefully assigned to oversee a loan made to a manufacturer of black powder and muskets in Lecco, a small city northeast of Milan located at the southern tip of the eastern prong of Lake Como. Suffering hard times after the war, the arms manufacturer defaulted on the loan. In 1876 Giulio was instructed to visit the facility and extract whatever funds could be negotiated. On horseback Giulio rode to the gorgeous city, investigated and concluded the borrower was insolvent and that any repayment was unlikely.