Founded by Vezio Bertoni (born 1891), the Ing. Giovanni Breda S.p.A. Engineering Works were based at Cadoneghe by the river Po, in the province of Padua. Bertoni was also responsible for another engineering company, BERCO, a concern that had, at one time, over 2,500 people on the payroll.
Although Breda also manufactured radial-arm drills, boring machines and twist drill grinders, it is for their conventional centres lathes that they are best known. At the height of their popularity, during the 1960s and 1970s, the range consisted of models designated by the prefix BR with a sub letter and then the centre height in millimetres. All displayed particularly clean angular lines with the smallest model, the BRf-150, mounted on a cabinet stand, but all the other with headstock and tailstock supported on individual plinths joined by one or more slide-out chip trays. Spindle speeds were selected by concentric rotary controls (with a small 3-spoke capstan handle that was easily manipulated by oil fingers) and the sealed screwcutting and feeds gearboxes by a similar dials and levers - there being no sliding tumbler running in a slot that could  allow in dirt and swarf.
With a with a 156 mm centre height and a capacity between centres of 800 mm. the BRf-150 had eight spindle speeds from 47 to 1440 r.p.m. Or, optionally, without extra cost, from 65 to 2000 r.p.m. In either case the motor was the same, a 2.2 kW 3-phase unit running at 1400 r.p.m. Spindle control was by the third-shaft method with, on short-bed examples, a single lever pivoting from the right-hand face of the apron and on longer bed examples with a duplicate control just outboard of the screwcutting gearbox..