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Watches: Panerai marks 100 years with a time-travel experience
Only 30 collectors will receive the Radiomir Viaggio nel Tempo set and an immersive journey through Italy’s naval and watchmaking history.
- PUBLISHED: Fri 6 Mar 2026, 11:27 AM
When it comes to retail addresses in watchmaking, few carry the gravity of Panerai’s historic Piazza San Giovanni boutique in Florence. Marking 100 years of uninterrupted presence, the Italian brand is not limiting the celebration to nostalgia alone, but elevating it into an immersive journey that quite literally walks a handful of watch enthusiasts through time.
The Radiomir Viaggio nel Tempo Experience Set is Panerai’s most ambitious expression yet of experiential ownership. Limited to just 30 sets, it binds two historically anchored Radiomir watches to a four-day Italian itinerary in September 2026 — an invitation reserved exclusively for owners.
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Florence forms the opening chapter, with a curated exhibition celebrating a century of the Piazza San Giovanni boutique. From there, the narrative deepens: retracing the meeting points, training grounds and diving locations of Italy’s legendary naval frogmen at the mouth of the Serchio River, before concluding at the COMSUBIN (Comando Raggruppamento Subacquei e Incursori) special operations unit base in Porto Venere and a yacht voyage along the Ligurian coast.
The Radiomir PAM01729 is the more visceral of the pair. Its 47mm bronze case is crafted from a copper-and-tin alloy. The California dial, with its split Roman and Arabic numerals, is not decorative whimsy but functional heritage, conceived for instant orientation in low-light conditions. Inside, the hand-wound P.3000 calibre delivers three days of power via twin barrels, visible through a sapphire-backed titanium case.
While the PAM01730’s 47mm case is executed in Panerai Platinumtech, a proprietary alloy engineered for increased hardness and reassuring weight. The black sandwich dial introduces a first for the maison: a circular-brushed finish that subtly animates the surface as light moves across it, while a near-invisible, tone-on-tone “Radiomir Panerai” inscription references the secrecy of early military commissions.
Both watches are water-resistant to 10 bar, both remain resolutely faithful to the Radiomir’s original proportions, and both are delivered in a mahogany presentation case that feels appropriately archival.