There is a certain intrinsic flamboyance about Italian design. Just like German pens are known for their engineering, Japanese pens are known for the finesse of their nibs, the Italian pens are known for the joie de verve they exude. Yes, I know I am at fault here for oversimplifying things – not all German pens are staid, big, and unromantic like the 149 and the Japanese also create timeless works of art with their Urushi and Maki-e. But I guess you get the drift of what I am trying to convey.
A case in point is Visconti. When two friends, Luigi Poli, and Dante del Vecchio, fired by their passion for the pen set up shop in 1988, they had chosen the city of Florence which is revered for its high fashion and luxury goods. Their mission was simple – the creation of practical and high-quality products infused with just the right dollop of oomph, by jacking up the style quotient.
The brand they created was Visconti. And like they say, the rest is history. Many allude that it was Florence that was the birthplace of the Renaissance: was Visconti, by setting up operations in Florence giving out signals? Perhaps. It will not be out of place to mention a little fact here – it was within a year of setting up their brand that Visconti had unveiled their first limited edition offering, limiting it to only a hundred pieces. You can call it chutzpah if you may, I look at it as supreme confidence that allows the bold to be beautiful as well – enough to change the rules of the game.
Before we move any further, let me confess that I am an unabashed apologist for Visconti pens and when I look at them, it is mostly love at first sight. I do not approach the filling mechanism, or even test write, leave alone feel the weight and check the grip – I just swoon: by feasting my eyes over them, only occasionally permitting myself the pleasure of running my fingers across, feeling, and caressing them before swiping my card
Yes, I am a penophile. Yes, the emotional intensity with which I approach fountain pens borders on the abnormal. Yes, my willingness to shell out an obscene amount for a Visconti after taking a cursory look at it may be frowned upon by many Puritans who will consider it to be childish, but allow me to say something in my defense. These pens are so well crafted, with so much love going into the creation of the intricate details that such “minor” things as perfect functioning can be taken for granted.
Let us introduce to you the Tuscan Hills fountain pen from Visconti to refurbish all that I am saying. This demonstrator fountain pen is an ode to Tuscan landscape, where ethereal beauty forces even time to slow down to become one with celestial eternity. And yes, we can overlook mundane facts: as the pen is partly see-through, all the resin components have been minutely and manually polished both on the outside and the inside with little felt polishing tools. So much for perfect functionality.
But hang on, for there is more, and now that we have broached the topic, let me also tell you that the Homo Sapiens Tuscan Hills pen uses the patented Visconti hook-safe capping mechanism which prevents the cap from accidentally unscrewing itself and leaking in the pocket (or the purse, or wherever you choose to carry it in). The pen features Visconti’s patented Double Reservoir Power Filler, a unique filling system that helps avoid leakages on flights at the same time increasing the pen’s ink capacity. Just because of its drop-dead gorgeous beauty, the Visconti Tuscan Hills is no pushover in terms of performance – like I was telling you, it has the wherewithal to easily walk into the Hall of Fame with the greats.
This pen, like many others from the timeless collection of Visconti can be had from the up-and-coming e-commerce site www.penspecials.com which also features some of the top brands of fountain pens, inks, and notebooks that we fountain pen fanatics look for. Their pricing is equitable and the service is highly recommended.