The founder was born in 1856 in Vergato, a small town located in the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines.

After working as an apprentice in Florence and Bologna, he moved to Latin America. Pietro returned to Italy to realize his most ambitious dream: starting his own business in Rome. The 1890 Monaci Guide states that Pietro in those years ran a grocery store with a bakery, located in one of the most populous neighbourhoods of the city: Esquilino. And, in just a few years, the stores became four. Pietro baked a wide variety of biscuits including the Osvego: a fragrant and scented biscuit. He started from a recipe of Anglo-Saxon origin, that of the Oswego, and adapted them to Italian taste through the simplicity of excellent quality ingredients such as flour, butter, barley malt, honey, slow cooking, and then placing them still hot in tin boxes. 1906 was the year that marked Pietro’s transition to the industrial process. In this year, he opened the first production plant in Via Novara, a few steps from Porta Pia. It was in an Italy at war that Pietro and Matilde passed away in Vergato and left the company in the hands of their children, even though the plant was requisitioned by the Allied command and declared auxiliary to war production.

Normal activities could only be resumed in 1948. Ettore, the youngest of Pietro’s eight children, returned from prison in 1946 and took over the reins of the company. During this period, Margherite was born, a biscuit still produced today, and whose machine was designed, patented, and built by Ettore himself. The new production site was inaugurated in 1958 in Via Tiburtina in Rome. In 2020, Gentilini celebrates its 130th anniversary, strong in its history and experience.