Founded in 1922 - and still in business as makers of advanced horizontal boring and milling centres - the Italian firm of  Bragonzi Spa stopped making lathes in the 1960s. However, their output was tiny, the Company stating that just 500 or so examples being produced. Details of the range made are scanty, but one model does stand out, the Pegaso - the Italian name for Pegasus, the mythical Greek winged stallion. Little-known and now rarely found, the "Bragonzi Pegaso" had a centre height of around 7.5 inches (380 mm) and could take some 50 inches (1000 mm) or more between centres. Although few details are available - no technical literature has yet been found - the lathe is remarkably similar to those toolroom-class models made by MAS as the Model 18S-VR and also sold - during the 1940s and 1950s - using Zbrojovka, and TOS badging. While the earlier versions of the MAS used an open-slot, tumbler-type screwcutting and feeds gearbox, later versions, sold as the Model 10, had an enclosed type controlled by three dials - and in this respect the Bragonzi appears to have adopted a version of the latter design. Although the spindle on the MAS was driven by a very wide - and what would have been a smooth-running - flat belt (the pulley held in its own bearings to prevent belt pull from affecting the spindle) on the Bragonzi no fever than five V-belts were used, the arrangement almost certainly enjoying the same dedicated, bearing-supported pulley arrangement. It might well be that the pages devoted to the Eastern European models - here and here - can provide some useful information about the how the Bragonzi was constructed and works
Should any reader have a Bragonzi machine tool - or any literature about them - the writer would be interested to hear from you..