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Panerai sponsors Galilei exhibition, puts Jupiterium on display
Thursday, October 15, 2009By James
I have a complicated relationship with Officine Panerai. On the one hand, Panerai is a pretty damn impressive exercise in aggressive marketing, the result of which are admittedly some pretty amazingly beautiful watches along with a hype that is almost unheard of. On the other hand, paneristi have a tendency to be incredibly irritating – not necessarily when it comes to brand loyalty but they are definitely touchy about Their Favorite Watchmaker. This, along with the fact that Panerai recently has risen to Rolex-levels in the great quest of how to quickly spend your daddy trust fund, is usually what bugs me about the Florentine watchmaker.
How nice then that Panerai has stepped up to the plate and introduced a selection of in-house movements (tourbillons, chronographs and more!), instead of overselling their history to cover the fact that they at the end of the day only contain decorated ETAs. Nothing wrong with an good ol’ ETA movement per se, but if you consider the premium you pay for a PAM you should expect more.
Moremore, Officine Panerai has further added to their legitimacy by sponsoring a world-wide touring exhibition of the original telescope constructed by Florentine astronomer Galileo Galilei. Currently on display in the Nobel Museum of Stockholm, Sweden, the telescope has been on a tour around the world in places like Florence, Beijing and Philadelphia. Georgio Strano from the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza in Florence notes that the telescope still works, 400 years after its manufacture, and that it’s on tour since the Florence museum is currently being renovated.
Not only is Panerai sponsoring the exhibition, they’ve also chosen it to be the venue for the unveiling of their unique behemoth of… well… portable (kind of) solar system, the Jupiterium. Galilei himself discovered the biggest four moons of Jupiter around the same time that he made the telescope, and the Jupiterium is based on drawings made by the Italian scientist. Featuring a handwound movement with a stunning 40 day power reserve and a perpetual calender, the Jupiterium consists of no less than 1377 pieces in total, which is pretty damn impressive considering Panerai has stated that it takes only 18 months to build one.
Want one? Well… first of all the price, a reported €1,5 million, is probably an issue for most. Another problem is the fact that only three are rumoured to be made, only one if which is being put up for sale (the other two being given to Panerai’s own museum and the aforementioned museum in Florence, respectively). And it’s probably already sold, anyway.
“It is important for us to celebrate … the greatest Italian genius of all time,” said Angelo Bonati, chief executive of Officine Panerai. It’s soothing to hear that modern day Italy can sometimes pull together and remember that once, they were an innovative, forward-thinking nation of geniuses and that they one day might return to their former glory.
