In the late 1920s or early ’30s, when developing its first breechloading Sovrapposto guns, Beretta used this so-called monobloc technique. It was widely adopted in Val Trompia and eventually elsewhere, and one of the characteristics of Italian double guns is often a telltale seam in the barrels—usually decorated with a ring of engraving—just forward of the hinge pin, where the ends of the tubes butt up against the block. Italian makers of bespoke guns now offer their clients the choice of “monobloc” or the more expensive traditional barrels, with seamless tubes (called “demibloc” in Europe), but Ernest Hemingway’s S3, a top-of-the-line model in its day, has this distinctive line.

Although their prices were far closer to the boxlock Browning Superposed made in Belgium than to the sidelock Boss- and Woodward-type guns from London, S-series Berettas from the beginning were built with sidelock actions. (“Lock” here means the mechanism by which a gun fires its ammunition, not how the action is fastened shut.) Each lock—the arrangement of cams, sears, springs and tumbler that detonates the cartridge—of a sidelock gun is mounted on a long oval plate inletted into the side of the stock at its head, where it meets the body of the gun. This is regarded as more esthetically pleasing than the simpler boxlock action, which contains its firing apparatus in a squared-off action “box” between the buttstock and barrels. A sidelock has some theoretical advantages in the geometry of its trigger linkage, and its sideplates offer a larger “canvas” for engraving; a boxlock is less complex and stronger but can look chunky, especially when it has been designed for mass production.

At the 1964 Olympics an Italian named Ennio Matterelli won the gold medal in trapshooting with an over-under made in Italy by Daniele Perazzi. The shooting world, and in particular America, took notice, and Beretta was positioned to take advantage of this promotional coup. Today the company’s mass-produced over-unders dominate the market worldwide, while its limited-production bespoke over-unders command huge prices. Modern Italian gunmakers, to a man (and woman), hold England’s great houses—Purdey, Boss, Holland & Holland, Greener, Westley Richards, et al.—in the highest esteem for their side-by-side guns but with the next breath proudly point to their own over-unders as the finest of their kind. Italy has refined the over-under shotgun to a standard found nowhere else, and Beretta makes this tradition accessible to shooters of all pocketbook sizes.

In its Oct. 5, 1999 catalog, the day when Beretta S3 No. 5991 went under the gavel, Mapes Auction Gallery noted that the gun and “about 17 or 18 others remained in Africa until 1964 when they were shipped to Abercrombie & Fitch Co., New York, to be offered for sale by Mary Hemingway.”

In 1964 Mary recalled that she and Ernest had 18 to 20 guns on their 1953-’54 safari, but we are certain of only eight of them: the Model 12 and W. & C. Scott shotguns; the Griffin & Howe, Model 61, Mannlicher and Westley Richards rifles; and probably two Woodsman pistols. It is true that Papa and Mary left Kenya without their guns (at least some of them) after that safari. Ernest, already battered from two bush-plane wrecks on January 23 and 24, compounded his injuries by falling into a brush fire while recuperating at a beach cottage at Shimoni, 50 miles south of Mombasa. Less than a week later, with Ernest all but invalided, Mary bundled him aboard the S.S. Africa for Venice by way of Port Said. There was no opportunity to pack properly and make all of the planned goodbyes. Five or six months later, when the Hemingways were at home in Cuba, a letter arrived from their friend William Hale, head of the Kenya Game Department. Along with reminding them that they owed the equivalent of $58.57 for extra game they had shot, Hale wrote that he had deposited Ernest’s guns in the bank for safekeeping. (Denis Zaphiro had probably taken charge of them after the Hemingways’ disorganized departure, and then handed them off to his boss, Hale.) However, the guns were returned long before 1964: Arnold wrote of seeing the Model 12 in 1958; Papa probably put the Scott to deadly use in July 1961; and Mary consigned two of the known safari guns to Abercrombie & Fitch for sale in 1963. Of this Beretta, also consigned, we have found no indication, written or photographic, that it was taken on safari.

The Mapes catalog also mentions a letter from Abercrombie & Fitch, dated March 5, 1964, “verifying that this shotgun, serial number 5991, did indeed belong to Ernest Hemingway.” The letter seems to have vanished; neither Mapes nor Beretta have it, and there is no copy in the Abercrombie & Fitch records. The gun, however, is now on display at the Beretta Gallery at 718 Madison Avenue in New York City.