Stipula has been working side by side with Florentine craftsmen for more than thirty years, thus giving rise to a awesome blend of culture, art and tradition that obeys the heritage of Florence, the Renaissance city where Stipula operates.

Renzo Salvadori founded the company now named Stipula in the spring of 1973. The company used to produce gold and silver clasps and ornamental fittings for prestigious leather firms. In 1977 the company started focusing primarily on the manufacture of desk accessories and in 1982 began producing pens, first for other trademarks, but beginning in 1991, under its own newly registered trade name, Stipula.

The company has always been renowned for the accuracy in the choice of materials and for the aesthetic elegance of its products.

The word Stipula is the Latin word for straw or small stick. A  small stick is in fact what the Romans used to split in sign of acceptance of a commitment more than 2000 years ago.

At Stipula they continue to pledge every day their commitment for quality and accuracy in the writing instruments manufactured and the dedicated pursuit for aesthetic and technological solutions to meet the standards of the great tradition of the fountain pen.

“We firmly believe that a pen is not only something to write with: a pen says something about you, it becomes a part of your personality and it bears traits of it.

This is the reason why we love making fountain pens: each of them is different from all the others and has its own character.” Stipula goes on to state,

“Every pen that comes to life has its  story. Every story begins with a person who dreams and a material that is shaped to match the dream…

Our pens are dreamt by our customers and we try to make their dreams come true.”

The process that brings to a new fountain pen starts with a drawing in the Design Department, where a staff of designers and engineers determine what the pen will look like: the shape, the color, the filling system and all the other mechanical aspects.

Once the drawing is perfected in all its details, it is brought to the Production Department.

If you walk through the Production Department you can really appreciate the work that is behind the making of a quality fountain pen. The manufacturing and assembling process is fascinating. It starts in the lathe section, where solid rods of material are turned either through traditional lathes or through control machines to become parts of the fountain pen.

Ever since the beginning of its history, Stipula has been exalting the pen pureness and the natural beauty of materials with the freshness of new ideas, the desire of new solutions, the overcoming of new limits.

Stipula experiments with new forms, new mechanisms and contemporary manufacture techniques on the most classic materials available in nature.

Stipula represents the best contemporary classic .

“Best” because they are focused on the needs of who loves writing instruments – creativity, innovation, uniqueness and quality.

“Classic” because their style is inspired by the Florentine tradition of craftsmanship and the principles of writing instruments tradition. The materials used are the same used at the beginning of the 20th century; the filling systems are modern interpretations of old creations; for the designs draw inspiration from models that belong to the fountain pen history .

“Contemporary” because they are a modern company and anyone visiting perceives and breathes the freshness that pervades the work. They conciliate the traditional techniques of craftsmanship with up to date quality and efficiency and propose creative innovations in designs and internal mechanisms.

When Renzo Salvadori, Stipula’s founder, speaks about the relationship between contemporary and vintage in the company, he likes to use a metaphor:“Stipula has two souls: the grandchild soul and the grandfather one. The grandchild represents technology and is expressed by dynamism and an eagerness to look forward, but the grandfather, representing tradition, must temper the grandchild’s ebullience”.