When the Italian military was looking for a new sidearm in the early 1930s, they really liked the pistol submitted by Beretta - but they also really liked the Walther PP. During the development process, the military requested that Beretta add a Walther-style slide-mounted safety to the Model 1934. That is the model that Beretta began making for the initial military trials contract of 650 guns, but partway through they were told to drop it (much to the relief of Beretta engineers, I expect). As a result, only a few hundred of these early dual-safety models were made.