Officine Panerai unveiled 12 new watches at a three-day exhibition in Florence, Italy, that showcased the brand’s rich history.

The ‘Dive into Time’ exhibition was held at Marino Marini Museum in the heart of the city. Housed in the former ancient church of San Pancrazio, which dates back to 9^th century, the museum showcases the works of the famous Italian painter sculptor and artist, Marino Marini.

Held from May 18 to 21, in the crypt of the building, the Panerai exhibition included previously unseen creations from the various periods in the history of the Florentine brand.

It focused on the insights in the field of optics and mechanics and the first instruments made by Panerai at the start of the last century, the iconic watches for the Royal Italian Navy from the 1930s to the 1950s; and a panorama of the models created during the period of almost 20 years in which the Richemont Group has owned it, a period when a watch known only to collectors has become one of the most admired international brands of high quality sports watchmaking.

The journey through Panerai’s past led to the discovery of the present and the vision of the future of the brand, with a world preview of 12 new models.

The new watches demonstrate how the brand interprets the relationship with its own history in ways which are always new, continually renewing itself from the point of view of technical content and function but always maintaining its own very strong distinctive identity.

The most revolutionary new feature was the presentation of the new Luminor Due case, inspired by the lines of the classic Luminor of the 1950s but subtly redesigned to accentuate the versatility of a watch which is a perfect synthesis of sporting character with an elegance enabling it to be worn on every occasion, a blend of distinctive design and sophisticated watchmaking technology.

The new Luminor Marina collection shows a considerable reduction in the thickness and weight of the case is a feature of a design always highly esteemed by Panerai collectors. In Florence no fewer than six new models are presented, all fitted with the new automatic P.9010 calibre with a power reserve of three days.

The Florentine exhibition is also the occasion for the presentation of the world preview of the most complicated watch ever made by the Panerai manufacture: the Radiomir 1940 Minute Repeater. With its remarkable twin repeater mechanism of hours and ten-minute intervals, which can chime both the local time and that of a second time zone, the new watch is presented in a context which enhances its absolute uniqueness.