NOVECENTO MECCANOGRAFICHE 911-MM MARINA MILITARE 500M SWISS LIMITED EDITION 100

On 2 May 1901, in a small village in central Tuscany, Bruno Bartalucci was born, nicknamed “Brelli”. At the age of twenty he opens a shop in Castelnuovo D’Elsa, where he produces shoes, boots, boots and accessories in leather and hide. It becomes famous in the area and in the Florentine area for its special cowhide, which re-greases personally, thus making its boots particularly resistant to water.

In 1937 Giuseppe Panerai, who became a customer of the shoe shop of Mr. Ippolito Sabatini, Bruno’s brother-in-law, bought the boots produced by Brelli. Panerai immediately realizes the particular water resistance of these boots and that important and secret projects proposed by the Ministry of the Royal Navy could be solved with the leather treated by Brelli himself and decides to ask for more information.
Panerai will meet Brelli in the weeks to come and, at the end of June 1938, a working and friendship relationship will be born that will last for almost twenty years; in fact, after passing the judgment of the Regia Marina testers, Bruno will supply the Regia Marina and in particular to the divers, range notators and raiders of the Decima Flottiglia Mas and to G. Panerai & Figli watch straps in its special cowhide, able to not to suffer the erosive action due to immersion in brackish water for long periods, for what will become the legendary Luminor Panerai.

The following year, Euro, Bruno’s eldest son, graduated in Florence in mechanics and, given the friendship between Brelli and Panerai, the latter brought Euro into the project office of the Officine Galileo in Florence as an assistant designer. Given the strong gift for mechanics and technical design, Euro soon became appreciated for its work, so much so that when needed it was commanded in the assembly and maintenance of telemetry turrets on war units of the Royal Navy.

During one of his interventions on board, he is contacted by a destroyer officer, assigned to launch torpedoes, who makes him a specific request: knowing that, like him, Euro is a fan of wristwatches and an acquaintance / friend of Panerai , asks him if he has a way to build a large chronograph watch, with a tachymeter scale, so that he can accurately calculate the speed of the enemy ships. When Euro returns to Florence, he talks about the project with Panerai, who, very busy in important matters on behalf of the Regia Marina, is happy to provide him with materials and equipment. Euro, in his spare time, works, working hard to modify a large watch given to him by Panerai himself. Soon Euro will be able to build a prototype of a monopusher chronograph, with the button opposite the reset and winding bezel and a tachometer dial, so as to be able to calculate the speed of a moving object.

Particular and adventurous events will lead Euro Bartalucci to an important mission of exchange of industrial technologies, adopted by the Royal Italian Navy and presented to the Imperial Japanese Navy, with a stratagem and a daring journey, not before having been trained in an intensive self-defense course and use of various weapons with his Galileo teammates, by members of the Decima Mas Flotilla in a base in Neptune, as an expedition with a very high risk of exchange of technologies also sponsored by the government.

On board a submarine, our technicians will reach Cape Town, where, off the coast of the latter, a fast Japanese unit will pick them up with their equipment to take them to a secret base in the Pacific Ocean. The return to Italy of Euro and his team will also be very painful, given the start of the war. Following a call to arms, Euro will leave for the Navy recruit training center in Trieste, to then be transferred to the naval base of Taranto. Embarked on the Regia Nave Trento and then on an escort fighter, he will make countless crossings in the Sicilian channel, in defense of our convoys. Survived the bombing of Naples, he died on the night of 12 August 1943 in the military hospital of Castellammare di Stabia, following infections caused by wounds.

Honors and War Merit Cross to Gunner Sergeant Euro Bartalucci. His dream of opening a precision mechanical workshop at the end of the war to build diving watches, depth gauges and compasses is buried with him. The name chosen for this company should have been Novecento Meccanografiche.

Bruno Bartolucci continued to supply straps to G. Panerai & Figli until the first half of the fifties, when, called to open a shoe factory, the Bruno Brelli Mechanized Cuoierie closed. Fabrizio Ciampi, the sole heir of his uncle’s work, will re-found the Cuoierie Meccaniche Brelli in 1982, casually reworking for the Officine Panerai of Florence in 1993, and, after more than seventy years, he will resume the project of Euro Bartolucci, founding the Novecento Meccanografiche and creating watches for high-tech and quality operational departments, designed for underwater and surface departments operating in the seas and beyond, but above all totally made in Italy.