Acqua Di Genova
The cologne of the House of Savoy.
Acqua di Genova traces its origins to 1853, when Genovese distiller Stefano Frecceri created a cologne for the Royal House of Savoy that would become a fixture of Italian court life and eventually find its way to the dressing tables of European nobility. Count Camillo Benso di Cavour used it; the Countess of Castiglione, celebrated as the most beautiful woman in Europe, wore it to meet Napoleon III. It is one of the oldest continuously produced Italian colognes, its formula built on Ligurian bergamot, Amalfi lemon, neroli, rosemary, and lavender over a base of sandalwood and amber. The fragrance belongs to the tradition of the classic Mediterranean cologne — bracingly fresh, architecturally simple, intended for liberal application and genuine daily use rather than sillage or projection. It has earned numerous gold medals at international exhibitions across its long history and remains emblematic of a specifically northern Italian sense of elegance: understated, clean, historically grounded. Today the brand is produced by the Italian company Intercosma West and continues to distribute through specialist Italian perfumeries. It is an artefact of nineteenth-century Italian culture that has survived into the present largely unchanged, a rarity in an industry defined by reinvention.
DNA over time
Each column is an era. Each colored band shows that family’s share of accord weight across every perfume the house released in that window. Bigger band = the house leaned harder on that family.
