Fragrance house

Borsari

Borsari traces its origins to Parma, where Lodovico Borsari began artisanal fragrance production in 1870 in Dario Saccò’s shop. He established an independent industrial perfume enterprise in 1897. The house’s defining historical fragrance is Violetta di Parma, a formulation dated to 1880 and associated with a violet perfume traditionally prepared by monks for Maria Luigia, Duchess of Parma and Napoleon’s second wife. In 1900, the company split into Borsari & Figli di Ludovico Borsari and Borsari & Co.; the former closed in 1970, while the latter later merged with La Ducale and Trionfale to form Profumi di Parma. Borsari also gave unusual attention to perfume presentation, with varied glass bottles, designed labels, advertising graphics, and scented promotional calendars preserved in its museum collection. The company’s Via Trento production site became the setting for that museum, which opened to the public in 1990. Borsari sold Violetta di Parma to an unnamed multinational in 1995; after that version was discontinued around December 2014, Jewels’ Joy launched a new Violetta di Parma at the end of 2015, produced by Parmafragrance and presented as a reconstruction of the original composition.