A Carousel of Color and Form

Thanks to a 45-year family legacy in pen making, Leonardo Officina Italiana has exploded in popularity and changed the face of fountain pens.

- BARRY GABAY

A carousel in motion displays colors and patterns that change constantly. The horse, the swan, the unicorn, the floating pastel carriage—each one, in motion, brings an individual delight. The seats and harnesses secure our children, protect them so that we can surrender to that delight, but what’s beneath the carousel’s beauty, comfort, and safety? Its structure is paramount, though we do not think about it consciously. With each revolution of the carousel, we see this marriage of art and engineering a little differently.

This is how Leonardo Officina Italiana writing instruments strike those encountering them for the first time. The pens are completely functional yet breathtakingly stunning to examine, and the feeling of appreciation increases with each writing session. Colors blend, separate, redefine themselves...and us. We are not the same at the conclusion of the carousel ride, at the end of each writing session. Using a Leonardo fountain pen is a journey into imagination. We are changed by exposure to this structural beauty, this functional art.

Leonardo fountain pens are built from the ground up. Technical aspects dominate early thought: nib-feed collar alignment, the piston’s anchoring and smooth movement, the security of the pocket clip, the cap band’s balance and light weight.

As CEO Salvatore Matrone says, “A Leonardo pen must feel comfortable and perform. It must write before anything else is considered.”

A second-generation penman, Matrone seemed destined for a future in pen production. His father, Ciro Matrone, was a Delta founder. He hoped Salvatore would become a goldsmith and produce metal details for his pens. Salvatore studied drawing, art history, and photography before beginning a career in industrial and graphic design. He learned that beauty and performance are inescapably linked.