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A Panerai Luminor Marina watch with a black dial and stitched black leather strap rests on cream linen beside an olive sprig.

Panerai: Florence, Naval Instruments and Swiss Watchmaking

From Giovanni Panerai’s 1860 Florence workshop to the Manufacture in Neuchâtel, Panerai’s history joins Italian naval instruments and watch design to present-day Swiss production.

A Florentine watch shop and school

Giovanni Panerai opened a watch shop on Florence’s Ponte alle Grazie in 1860. The business combined a shop and workshop with what Panerai calls the city’s first watchmaking school. In 1926 it moved to the Archbishop’s Palace opposite the cathedral under the name Orologeria Svizzera.1,2

From naval instruments to Radiomir

Before the watches, the Panerai family supplied precision instruments to the Italian Royal Navy. In 1916, the name Radiomir appeared in an addendum to a French patent for a luminous, radium-based compound developed for instrument dials with Carlo Ronconi. The milestone concerns the luminous material and its name; it is not the date of a finished Radiomir wristwatch.1,2

The 1935 prototype programme

Panerai connects a 1935 Royal Navy programme of diving-watch trials with Giuseppe Panerai and early prototypes. In its account, Ref. 2533 gave the best result: Rolex-Geneva supplied the base, which Panerai then modified.1,2

Sources and citations (6)
  1. The History of Panerai Watches
  2. La storia di Panerai
  3. Panerai Manufacture – Factory Tour
  4. Manifattura Panerai a Neuchâtel
  5. Panerai history
  6. Luminor Marina PAM03312

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