(Kimberly (she/her) took the express train down the fountain pen/stationery rabbit hole and doesn't want to be rescued. She can be found on Instagram @allthehobbies because there really are many, many hobbies!.)
You may recall that I recently got a Gioia Partenope Avorio in August as part of my San Francisco Pen Show Haul. I first saw pictures of this when Luxury Brands of America announced on June 1st that they were going to be the exclusive North American distributor for Gioia Pen. I will admit that I didn’t immediately fall in love with it since I don’t usually fall for white/cream-colored pens but the more I saw pictures of it and after I saw it in person in SF, I knew I wanted to get one. I hadn’t heard of Gioia Pen before so I researched their website and thankfully, discovered that my rudimentary Italian skills were enough to get the gist of their background.
Gioia Pen is the brainchild of Fabio Cervasio and the company has been making pens since 2014. He and his team of craftsmen collectively have twenty years of experience making commissioned pens for other brands and industries. In 2020, they decided to release pens under their own brand. Along with the Gioia name, you will often see their tagline of “Writing Emotion”.
The Partenope is one of two models from Gioia; the other one is the Alleria which is a piston filler (the Liberty Island model is a version of the Alleria with the Statue of Liberty motif on the barrel). The name “Partenope” comes from the Ancient Greek word for “Naples”, which is fitting since Gioia Pen is based in Naples, Italy; “Avorio” is the Italian word for “ivory”. The inspiration for the Avorio’s color combination comes from what Naples looks like on a cloudy day.
Gioia Partenope Avoria atop the black pen box (black box sleeve not shown.)
I didn’t get a chance to open the pen box until after the show and was pleasantly surprised to find not only the pen, but also a ballpoint adapter as well (more on that later). The barrel and cap of the Partnenope Avorio is an ivory-swirled resin. Both the end cap, which can be unscrewed to accept the converter, and grip section are in a muted, dusty blue color. Above the grip and on the other side of the threads is a band of red, white and green, which are the colors of the Italian flag. One of the things I love about the Avorio is the rose gold trim which looks really good against the muted grey-blue and ivory tones. The rose gold trim is present on the top cap band, clip, the nib, and other thin bands. The cap has the Gioia logo in the same muted blue with the rose gold trim. The top cap band is sizable and is engraved with the skyline of Naples. The clip is springy and works well, although its design may not be everyone’s aesthetic.
Surprise! A ballpoint attachment as well as the fountain pen.
I appreciate the illustrated documentation with English and Italian instructions.
The ballpoint grip also sports the same color blue as the end cap and has a rose gold, engraved barrel which unscrews from the section to reveal a Parker-style ballpoint refill from Inox. Standard pens aren’t my forte, so I’m guessing it’s a .05 mm point. The refill has a spring which fits easily over the Inox refill, but took a little finesse (ok, a bit more than that) to get the spring to fit past the slight bump in the tips of other Parker-style refills (including an actual Parker refill). You have to get the spring over the bump in order for other refills to fit (I checked this with Parker-style refills from Parker, Monteverde, and Jetstream).
Partenope with ballpoint grip - I love that this matches the end cap and isn’t a generic color.
Left: The spring fits over the tip of the Inox refill Middle: Inox refill tip & spring Right:Parker refill tip & spring. The little bump near the base catches on the spring, so you have to get the spring over that bump for it to work.
Like other Italian pens, the Partenope has a removable end cap, which allows you to access the converter without having to unscrew the barrel. The converter’s knob is also rose gold colored and has the Gioia branding etched on it as well. This standard international converter is threaded, which is a nice touch, as this ensures the converter is securely in place. If this converter makes the pen feel too heavy for you (I don’t have this problem at all), you can always substitute it for a threaded K6 converter by Schmidt to lighten up the pen.
Rose gold details in the cap, end cap, nib and converter.
Rose gold and engraving make this a classy looking converter.
Gioia uses Jowo 6 nibs engraved with their branding and the nib sizes range from EF to 1.5 stub. And as mentioned above, the pen wrote beautifully out of the box and at every writing session. The ballpoint is alright, nothing to write home about, but it works without problems and the pen is still comfortable with the ballpoint grip.
Since inking this pen up in early September, I have used it a total of 8 times, which doesn’t sound like much, but there were a couple marathon writing sessions, resulting in one reinking. I inked it up with Akkerman 07 KoninginneNach Blauw which matches the pen’s blue tone quite nicely once the ink is dry. The pen wrote nicely right out of the box and hasn’t needed priming at any point. I looked at my logs (thank you, Fountain Pen Companion!) and saw that there was a 3 week stretch between uses (oops, lol) and I didn’t have any problems when I resumed writing. There is an inner cap sleeve which minimizes evaporation and helps with keeping the pen ready to write.
Writing sample on 90 gsm Clairefontaine Triomphe paper.
Another writing sample on 52gsm Hobonichi Weeks.
The Partenope is a comfortable pen. The slightly girthy grip has a taper, which flares out near the nib, which keeps fingers from slipping. It is not a particularly heavy pen by itself, but the cap is almost half the weight of the entire pen. Contrast that with the Leonardo Momento Zero where the cap is less than a third of the weight. Without the cap, I would say it is in the same ballpark size and weightwise with the LMZ and Pelikan M800. Keep in mind that the Partenope numbers below include about half a converter’s worth of ink.
Partenope (pen+cap) - 1.593 oz/45.17 g vs 0.928 oz/26.35 gfor the LMZ
Partenope (cap only) - 0.736 oz/20.86 g vs 0.286 oz/8.13 g
Partenope (pen only) - 0.858 oz/24.33 g vs 0.643 oz/18.25 g
Comparison with Lamy 2000, Leonardo Momento Zero, Pelikan M800, Gioia Partenope, Pilot 823, Platinum 3776, TWSBI ALR.
Pro:
- Lovely pen with matching ballpoint grip/refill
- Quality details (threaded converter, matching trim)
- Good nib
- Good value
Neutral:
- Clip design may not be for everyone
- Wide cap band design may not suit everyone’s aesthetic
- Ballpoint refill is ok.
Con:
- The pen is very backheavy if you post your pens.
- Pen may be too girthy if you prefer slimmer pens
In short, I am glad I picked the Gioia Partenope Avorio as one of my birthday pens because I really enjoy looking at and writing with it. The Partenope is a great value (moreso because it has the added ballpoint) at $240 MSRP ($173 street price), or 156EU. Knowing that ink won’t dry out if I go a few weeks between uses gives me peace of mind since I ink up a lot of pens. And even though I’m not much of a ballpoint user, having that option makes this a really great choice for someone who likes both fountain pens and ballpoints.
(Disclaimer: I picked up this pen for my birthday directly from Luxury Brands of America at the SF Show as it had not yet been sent to their vendors. All pens are my own and I have not been compensated by any of the brands included in this article.)
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