"You might as well build a throne with bayonets, but you will not sit on it for long” - Boris Yeltsin.
Paraphrasing the book “Guns, Germs and Steel” by the Pulitzer winning author Jared Diamond on the three key factors that have moulded the world as we see it today, on 16th March 2017 at 17.30 at F.lli Lorenzi’s you will be introduced to the fascinating world of bayonets, as well as of combat and sports knives.
Fabrizio Spoleti, an engineer from Milan aged 58, will speak about bayonets. He is keen on history and he’s been a collector of bayonets since he was a young boy. In fact, he has collected about 350 pieces over the years. He will tell us about the origin and the story of the bayonet and its use. He will also introduce all the existing types (sword-bayonet, socket bayonet, spike bayonet etc.), the various models depending on the country of origin, its main features and its evolution over time. We will see about twenty pieces from life and then we shall answer all your questions and curiosities. Rumour has it that the birth of the bayonet was due to the inventiveness of some soldiers under siege who put their knives into the barrels of their harquebuses for an extreme desperate self defence.
The origin of the name may be linked to the town of Bayonne, situated in the south of France in the so-called French Pays Bas; a town that boasts a long tradition for the manufacturing of melee weapons.
The photo here shows Olimpio Lorenzi, Marcello and Stefano’s grandfather, with his bayonet during the First World War, in 1914 (the man sitting). He was the first Lorenzi to open a cutlery shop in Milan, in 1919.
