Panerai is a luxury Italian watch manufacturer, founded in 1860 by Giovanni Panerai, who opened his first shop on Ponte alle Grazie in Florence. This served as not only a workshop also as the city’s first watchmaking school. In the years 1938 to 1970, The Florence-based workshop specialised in producing some of the first professional diving watches, subsequently supplying over 1600 watches to the Royal Italian Navy. It was in 1993 it then moved to launch its products to the general public.