DUCALE’s origins date way back to 1954, the year the factory producing professional coffee makers for bars and cafés was founded. Its name was then "Duchessa", later becoming Ducale in 1960, in honor of the city of Parma as it is known is called the Ducal City.

Located in Via Rossini in Parma, witnessed the birth of traditional handle-operated coffee makers for cafés and bars. Initially produced for the Italian market, these were soon exported to the rest of Europe, South America and Australia.

In the 50s, as they had already taken the major brands such as Gaggia and Faema, Ducale also propose a model of coffee machine with piston for domestic use: "Lady duchessa"

Is a compact machine, with the possibility of delivering steam and hot water, provided with thermostat, subsequently replaced by the more functional pressurestat.

From the few photos circulating on the web, we can deduce that the initial model has had few significant changes over time, while maintaining its characteristic shape. A particular project only on these machines is given by the lever assembly, designed to allow two positions of the spring, uncompressed with lever on the top, compressed with the lever on the bottom. Are very rare.

During the ‘60’s, the rounded curves typical of design features of the preceding decade, gave way to a newer sleak straight-edged look, and the handle-operated machines were at first flanked by and then entirely substituted by the new production of "continuous output" or pump-operated coffee makers.

In the mid-’60’s Ducale was the first coffee-maker in the world to produce a completely automatic espresso machine, capable of performing all phases of transformation, starting from whole beans and pouring out a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

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