Sante Crucianelli founded the Crucianelli accordion company in the late 1880s. During the 1960s the market for accordions was shrinking so the company started making guitars.

The company has parallels with Eko - another italian accordion manufacture who diversified into the guitar market in the 1960s. The two companies were in competition in the early 1960s - matching each other model for model. But by the late 1960s each company was concentrating on their own market sector: Eko on solid body electrics and acoustics, and Crucianelli on semi-acoustic electrics. Both companies did work for Vox, and some Eko models had Crucianelli input. Crucianelli made parts for other manufacturers, for example the bodies of the Baldwin 706 model.

Identifiying Crucianelli guitars can be complicated by the different brandnames they used. (including Élite, Elli-Sound and Custom Built). There were also various brandnames used by their American distributors, PANaramic (by PANcordion Inc. of New York) and Imperial, Tonemaster (by The Imperial Accordion Company of Chicago). Also Reno, España and Ardsley used by other US distributors.

References:
http://www.fetishguitars.com/index/crucianelli.html