Born into a family of farmers and merchants in Santa Marie Maggiore in northern Italy's Piedmont region, Giovanni Marie Farina (1685-1766) devoted all his youthful energy to searching for exquisite fragrances. In 1700, he left for Maastricht to begin training as a merchant in his uncle's thriving business. He travelled to many major European cities and eventually arrived in Cologne, where he founded the company that is now known as the oldest perfume factory in the world in 1709.

In 1708, Johann Maria Farina described his fragrance in a letter to his brother Giovanni Battista: ‘I have found a fragrance that reminds me of an Italian spring morning, of mountain daffodils and orange blossoms shortly after the rain. It refreshes me, strengthens my senses and my imagination.’ When he read the letter, Giovanni Battista probably had no idea that his brother had created a masterpiece that would influence his life and that of generations to come. Johann Maria Farina would later name it Eau de Cologne after his adopted home on the Rhine, making Cologne a famous centre of perfumery in the 18th century. In honour of their world-famous citizen, the people of Cologne had a statue of him erected on the town hall, where it can still be admired today.

Farina's Eau de Cologne became a favourite of Europe's heads of state, and in 1837 his descendant Jean Marie Farina was appointed the first purveyor to Queen Victoria. Today, the Farina archive holds more than fifty titles from noble houses across Europe, from Portugal to Russia. During its 300-year history, Farina has served an elite clientele including Napoleon, Honoré de Balzac, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, Marlene Dietrich, Indira Gandhi, Romy Schneider and Princess Diana.

Since 1999, the company, which was owned by Roger & Gallet for a few years, has been 100% family-owned again. Johann Maria Farina, the current CEO and perfumer, is now the eighth generation to run the company and is returning to its roots: high-quality colognes.