There are boutiques, and then there are addresses that anchor an entire brand. For Panerai, that address is the shop at Piazza San Giovanni in Florence — the storeroom, workshop and watch shop that has stood opposite the Duomo for a hundred years. To mark the centenary of the boutique, Panerai unveiled the Luminor Firenze 8 Giorni in two limited editions: the steel PAM01794 and the Platinumtech PAM01734. Sharing a case, a dial concept and the hand-wound P.5000 calibre, the pair looks back to a rare 1960s prototype of the legendary Ref. 6152/1 — the same military-issue model that gave the world the Luminor’s crown-protecting bridge.
News of the anniversary editions broke quietly ahead of the opening of the Panerai Immersion exhibition at Florence’s Museo Marino Marini, where both watches are being presented to the public from September 10 to 19. It is a fitting venue: the exhibition traces the house from its 1860 origins as a Florentine watch shop to its decades equipping the Italian Navy’s divers, and now to the modern luxury era. The boutique itself, known as Orologeria Svizzera, moved to its current home in the Archbishop’s Palace in 1926. Its original wooden shopfront — still visible beneath the sign today — is the quiet hero of this anniversary.
The Prototype That Started It
The design source for the Firenze 8 Giorni is one of the most fabled references in Panerai collecting: the Ref. 6152/1, delivered to the Marina Militare in the early 1960s in around 500 examples. Built by Rolex with Panerai dials, the 6152/1 already had the now-signature crown bridge, a cushion case and a sandwich dial with luminous numerals. The prototype that inspired these new editions is distinguished by a detail no production 6152/1 carried: a tone-on-tone “Panerai Firenze” inscription beneath 12 o’clock. That discreet engraving — the boutique’s name in the same colour as the dial, unreadable at a glance — is the whole story in one gesture. It appears again on both PAM01734 and PAM01794.
Panerai’s designers have compressed the prototype’s imposing 47mm case down to a more wearable 44mm, polished the cushion-shaped middle case and kept the brushed crown-protecting bridge with its lever that unlocks the crown. The domed sapphire crystal echoes the curved Perspex of the 1960s originals.
The Steel PAM01794: A Diver’s Centenary
The PAM01794 is the more rugged of the pair. Its circular-brushed anthracite sandwich dial pairs cut-out Arabic numerals and markers filled with light-green Super-LumiNova with blued pencil hands — a restrained, almost sober face that lets the 300-metre water resistance and closed steel caseback do the talking. And it is the caseback that carries the emotional payload: a detailed engraving of the Piazza San Giovanni facade, down to the displays of watches in the window. With a screw-in back and the full Luminor water-resistance rating, this is an anniversary watch that remains fully a tool.
On the wrist, the 44mm Luminor remains a statement of presence, but the brushed anthracite surface softens it. The blued hands are the only colour on the dial, and the pairing of gray-blue rarely fails. The brown Tuscan calfskin strap is hot-stamped with the Florentine lily, the city’s ancient emblem, and a matching black rubber strap ships in the box — sensible given the dive rating.
The Platinumtech PAM01734: Green for the Precious Few
The hundred-piece PAM01734 takes the same architecture into Platinumtech, Panerai’s proprietary platinum alloy — 95 percent pure platinum treated for increased hardness. Here the caseback is open, and the hand-wound calibre is on display through sapphire. The green sandwich dial is circular-brushed to match the steel sibling, with lighter green Super-LumiNova markers and gold-effect double pencil hands. The Florentine lily motif returns, this time hot-stamped onto a black Tuscan calfskin strap closed by a white gold trapezoidal buckle; a green rubber strap accompanies it.
The choice of green is not arbitrary: it nods to the verdigris patina of Florence’s own doors and monuments — and to the green fields of the Tuscan hills visible from the boutique’s position in the city’s religious heart. It also ties the collection to the earlier 1960s-inspired releases Panerai presented at Watches and Wonders earlier this year, which explored similar dial treatments in the Luminor line.
The P.5000 Calibre: Eight Days, No Compromise
Both Firenze editions run on calibre P.5000, the in-house manual-wind movement that has become the default engine for Panerai’s eight-day references. Its twin barrels deliver a genuinely useful 192 hours — eight days — of power reserve, running at a leisurely 21,600 vph with a Glucydur balance and Parechoc anti-shock protection. With 113 components and 21 jewels, it is not a movement built to impress through decoration alone; it is built to keep running through a working week and a weekend without a wind.
The P.5000’s architecture also carries a piece of Panerai history: the eight-day power reserve is a direct echo of the long-running Angelus calibres fitted to the original 1950s radiomirs, which the brand cited for decades. In the PAM01734 the open caseback shows the broad plates and bevels of the calibre; in the PAM01794, the engraved boutique facade covers it.
Both watches arrive in a mahogany presentation box bearing a metal plaque of the boutique entrance — a detail that will matter to collectors who treat the box as part of the artefact. The PAM01794 is limited to 1,000 pieces at EUR 10,700, and the PAM01734 to 100 pieces at EUR 55,000. Both are available at Panerai boutiques from September 2026.
Specifications
| Reference | PAM01794 (steel) / PAM01734 (Platinumtech) |
|---|---|
| Case | 44mm cushion-shaped, polished case with brushed crown-protecting bridge; PAM01734 in Platinumtech (95% platinum alloy) |
| Crystal | Domed sapphire, curved like 1960s Perspex originals |
| Caseback | PAM01794: screw-in, closed, engraved Florence boutique facade; PAM01734: open sapphire display |
| Water Resistance | PAM01794: 300m; PAM01734: 100m |
| Movement | Calibre P.5000, hand-wound mechanical, 21,600 vph (3Hz) |
| Power Reserve | 192 hours (8 days), twin barrels |
| Components / Jewels | 113 components, 21 jewels |
| Balance / Shock | Glucydur balance, Parechoc anti-shock device |
| Dial | Circular-brushed sandwich; PAM01794 anthracite with blued hands; PAM01734 green with gold-effect hands; cut-out numerals, “Panerai Firenze” tone-on-tone inscription at 12 |
| Lume | Light-green Super-LumiNova on numerals, markers and hands |
| Strap | Tuscan calf leather, hot-stamped Florentine lily; PAM01794 brown with steel buckle, PAM01734 black with white gold buckle; extra rubber strap supplied |
| Functions | Hours, minutes |
| Limited Edition | PAM01794: 1,000 pieces; PAM01734: 100 pieces |
| Price | EUR 10,700 (PAM01794); EUR 55,000 (PAM01734) |
Why This Anniversary Matters
Watch brands celebrate birthdays of workshops, founders and model lines with growing frequency, but the Florence boutique is different: it is the physical link to the family business that Giovanni Panerai started in 1860, before the name was ever on a case. The shop has sold, repaired and — in its early decades — assembled watches on the same spot for a century. Panerai’s history pages are full of milestones, but the Orologeria Svizzera is the one that stayed open while the rest of the story unfolded around it.
The decision to mark the anniversary with a quiet dial inscription and an engraved caseback rather than a loud commemorative design is telling. It is the same restraint that makes vintage Panerai so desirable: the brand understood early that the Luminor silhouette, the sandwich dial and the crown bridge carry the identity, and that decoration is mostly subtraction. The Firenze 8 Giorni pair is a collector-friendly reminder of that lesson — and, with only 1,100 pieces between them, one that will not linger in boutiques.
For more on the brand’s history, read our earlier feature on Panerai’s journey from Florence to the modern era. For context on the movement, see what power reserve means in practice, and for the dive ratings, how water resistance is measured.
