A few words about us, the ‘Umbria Tellus’ brand and “Oleum “sibi” labels with their logo.
Oleum-sibi.com is the internet window for the artisan Extra Virgin Olive Oil ‘Oleum sibi’, produced by the small, family-run company ‘Umbria Tellus’ from Umbria, in the heart of Italy.
The Buscaglia family has produced olive oil for own consumption from centuries-old olive trees for generations, with the highest care and love for this precious nectar.
In 2013, several years after his father ‘Amedeo‘ had passed away, one of his sons, Gian Luca, decided to honor him and his beliefs while pleasing the family by starting up the artisan company ‘Umbria Tellus’ (Latin for ‘Soil of Umbria’).
The aim was to let a wider set of olive-oil lovers and users know about that ‘family jewel’, its peculiar taste, the constant quest for an always better quality.
LOGO
In 2013 father ‘Amedeo‘ had drawn by hand a label for the family oil. For reasons of non-compliancy with existing official EEC rules for labels the original label could not be used in its entirety on a bottle for the public market.
His son Gian Luca then brought some modifications to the original label, aside from also creating a back-label.
The top part of the original label is shown on the left hand side of the picture below: the depicted village and name of the olive oil were kept unchanged, including their font. When it came to the curved line on the top, symbolizing the sky, Gian Luca had the idea to change it into a symbol of sky well-known by his enlarged family: the one showing in the coat of arms on the jackets of his father’s first cousin, sir ‘Carlo Emanuele Buscaglia‘, one of the brightest Italian world-war II heroes.
Adapting that so-known-in-the-family coat of arms, appearing second from the left in the picture below, was also a way to pay homage to Carlo Emanuele, so Gian Luca decided to change a few elements in it: Carlo Emanuele having been the head of a small squad of torpedo bombers, a torpedo coming from the sky was then the main symbol in the middle of the coat of arms. The four cats on top hint at the familiar Italian expression ‘siamo quattro gatti’ i.e. when a group is composed only by a few people, meaning ‘there is only a few of us doing the job’…
In the official ‘ Oleum “sibi” ‘ logo, second from the right in the picture below, the torpedo, a symbol of war, was substituted by a branch of olive tree, universal symbol of peace…the four cats remained, since similarly this artisan olive oil is produced by just a few members of the family. Cats were just colored with the colors of the Italian national flag, as tribute to Carlo Emanuele‘s origins which are the same as “Oleum “sibi”‘s.
Peculiar thing: both father Amedeo and his cousin Carlo Emanuele had used Latin language in their respective creations, therefore Latin expression remained in the Olive oil logo…with the same sentence in which Gian Luca replaced just the last word:
From:
‘pauci sed semper immites‘ which stands for “a few (people) but always fearsome” in the coat of arms
to:
‘pauci sed semper delectaris‘ which stands for “a few (people) but always passionate’ in the EVOO logo
That little change makes a big difference!
Finally, the family name replaced the name of the squad at the bottom of the logo.
NAME OF EVOO
The name of the EVOO, ‘Oleum “sibi” ‘ is again in Latin language and it means “(olive) oil for oneself.“: in Amedeo‘s mind, when someone does something for themselves they do it well 🙂
Gian Luca‘s endeavour was then to make others than family members profit from the wonderful produce issued from the family grove and pass the message ‘this olive oil you are eating was made with the same care you would take if you would make it for yourself’!
Aside the ‘Classic’ version of ‘Oleum “sibi” ‘, to complete the overview of the ‘Umbria Tellus’ brand and “Oleum “sibi” labels with their logo, there are two special cuvées whose label will contain the following suffixes:
– ‘Verdone‘, EVOO made from early harvested olives https://www.oleum-sibi.com/oleum-sibi-verdone-wins-silver-medal-award-at-2020-olive-japan-international/
– ‘Lucia‘, EVOO made from a mix of early and lately harvested olives https://bestoliveoils.org/brands/oleum-sibi—lucia