Panerai

Giovanni Panerai opened a workshop and watch shop on the Ponte alle Grazie in Florence in 1860. His grandson Guido expanded it, moved to Piazza San Giovanni, opposite the Baptistery, and made the Orologeria Svizzera an agent for leading Swiss brands, above all Rolex. He also took over his wife's family's mechanical workshop and in 1925 founded Guido Panerai & Figlio with his son Giuseppe.

The firm's breakthrough was Radiomir, a luminous radium paste for dials, gun sights and instruments. English Wikipedia credits Guido with inventing it in 1915; Italian Wikipedia credits Giuseppe. Radiomir brought the company to the Royal Italian Navy, for which it supplied illuminated sights and precision instruments.

In 1936 the navy's First Submarine Group asked for a diver's wristwatch readable in deep, murky water. The Radiomir watch, with a 47 mm cushion case and a Rolex movement, was supplied from 1938 and worn by frogmen of the Decima Flottiglia MAS during the Second World War. Between 1935 and 1970 the Florence workshop delivered around 1,600 wrist-worn diving instruments; Rolex designed and made all but one model, the GPF 2/56 of 1956 for the Egyptian Navy, and Panerai made the luminous dials. After the war tritium-based Luminor replaced radium, and the patented crown-protecting bridge became the brand's signature.

Giuseppe Panerai died in 1972 and the naval engineer Dino Zei took over, renaming the business Officine Panerai and developing compasses, depth gauges and torches for the navy's frogmen. Panerai stopped supplying the navy in about 1970 and first sold watches to civilians in 1993.

Richemont acquired the company in 1997 and repositioned it as a luxury brand, issuing annual Special Editions, opening its own manufacture in Neuchâtel in 2002 and developing in-house movements; a partnership with Ferrari ran from 2005 to 2010. Angelo Bonati led the brand for some twenty years.

Jean-Marc Pontroué succeeded Bonati on 1 April 2018 and led Panerai until he moved to Breitling in 2026. Panerai is headquartered in Geneva and makes watches in Neuchâtel; its devotees call themselves Paneristi.