Leave it to the Italians to make something beautiful. Leave it to Venezianico to make it affordable. This year, the Italian brand debuted perhaps its most impressive model yet, the Venezianico Redentore Bellanotte. I was impressed when I saw the press release, but I was blown away when I got a chance to see it in Chicago at the WindUp Watch Fair. I was so impressed, in fact, that I made my friend buy one on the spot. And then I had Alberto Morelli, the brand’s co-founder, send me one so that I could do a proper review. The Bellenotte isn’t just an example of Venezianico’s Italian inspiration but yet another example of small brands rapidly eroding the territory of so-called haute horlogerie.
The Venezianico Redentore Bellanotte takes one of the brand’s most popular models — the Redentore — and elevates it. Venezianico has used interesting dial materials before, from aventurine to Musou Black, but the Bellanotte is art. An earlier model, the Redentore Historia Temporis, had a minted dial with an antiqued finish that similarly displayed a Venice cityscape, but that looked as much like an old Venetian coin as anything else. The Redentore Bellanote brings an entirely new facet to the brand’s catalog, and the brand has smartly used the simple Redentore case to let the dial sing.
The case of the Redentore measures 40mm wide and 11.8mm thick. With the curved sapphire crystal and the convex polished bezel, there’s a bit of a bulbous feeling to it, despite it not being that thick or that round. You feel its presence on the wrist, but it never overwhelms or gets in the way. For what is essentially a dress watch, this exists firmly in my range of comfort. The finishing is sharp, especially for the price point (and the fact that many similarly situated brands would cut corners on the case if they made a dial like this).
The watch offers a crown with the brand’s logo nestled between crown guards and has 50m of water resistance. The 20mm leather strap is nothing special but does its job, and I found it easy to pair the watch with several other options, despite a lack of quick-release pins. Its curved ends have it sitting right up against the case, and Venezianico has smartly outfitted the lugs with two sets of holes, allowing for other curved straps or more traditional straight-end straps. Of note: The brand also sells the watch on a bracelet, but the finishing doesn’t match well, so I wouldn’t recommend it.
Looking at the Bellanotte’s dial, I’m immediately reminded of handcrafted dials like those of the Louis Vuitton Cabinet of Wonders watches and the Vacheron Constantin Métiers D’Art Legend Of The Chinese Zodiac watches. I’m reminded of how small brands continue to chip away at domains once firmly staked by luxury brands and high-end independents. While I won’t suggest that the Bellanotte’s dial is of the same caliber as the LV or the VC, the experience is quite similar, and I think that’s more important. Those watches cost $269,000 and $100,000, respectively, but at the end of the day, all three use a mix of materials to offer beautiful artwork on their dials. Outside of the macro photos herein, I won’t be examining the Venezianico dial with a loupe, which, for all intents and purposes, is the only occasion I’d have to notice a significant difference between it and those higher-end pieces.
As I hinted, this dial — and any such dial — is all about impact. The added layers, intricate detailing, starry aventurine sky, and mother of pearl create a romantic scene, all in the tiny space of the dial. It pulls you in and makes you want to keep staring. No doubt those luxury timepieces I mentioned do the same, but it’s hard to imagine they do it that much better. Here, Venezianico has given us a nighttime depiction of Venice’s St. Mark’s Square in four layers, complete with the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, the Doge’s Palazzo Ducale, and the lion-topped pillar that sit at the edge of the plaza.
The detail throughout is impressive, with the rhodium-plated brass architectural layer sitting upon the aventurine sky, which itself is accented by bursting fireworks. The time is displayed with blued alpha hands against a mother-of-pearl dial with minute markings (too often omitted on watches like this) encircled by a polished flange. The only thing that kept nagging at me was the fact that I couldn’t find this exact view of St. Mark’s. Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough, but it may be that the brand composited the buildings to create an idealized skyline. Whatever the case may be, Venezianico has not fallen victim to one of the issues that I often find with highly artistic dials: the sacrificing of legibility in the name of art (here’s a beautiful and useless watch from Patty P to illustrate). Whatever is being done with a dial, a watch still needs to be usable as a watch, and Venezianico has demonstrated that balance can be struck. For the sparing times that I wasn’t admiring the dial and actually used the watch to tell the time, it was easy to do so.
The fun doesn’t stop with the dial, as the caseback has another rendering of the namesake Chiese del Santissimo Redentore with fireworks behind it, in addition to some words about the Feast of the Redeemer (Il Redentore) which commemorated the end of the plague in 1576. If I found out the plague had ended, I’d probably want some fireworks and church, too. Under the caseback is a movement you’ve probably never heard of or seen used, the automatic Seiko NH05A. Usually seen on much smaller watches, the movement is only 17.55mm wide and is placed in a brass movement ring directly under the mother-of-pearl dial. The movement has 21 jewels, hand-winding, and hacking, and runs at 21,600 vph with a power reserve of about 50 hours.
For four months in the fall of 2007, I studied abroad in Perugia, Italy. I was in the center of the country, and while I never made it to Florence or Pisa or Milan, I did take a weekend to meet some friends in Venice. It was a magical weekend that involved digging a cork out of a wine bottle with a carrot peeler and refusing to pay €60 for a gondola ride. Venice was crowded and touristy, though, and St. Mark’s was almost claustrophobic — I was happy for the condo we had, tucked back among the hidden waterways. The Venice illustrated on the Redentore Bellanotte is foreign to me, but it certainly exists somewhere, at some time — an idyllic depiction of a magical city. The disconnect between my experience and what’s on the dial didn’t hamper my enjoyment: The watch is easy on the wrist and even easier on the eyes, and I won’t deny that a part of the charm for me was a personal nostalgia. The Venezianico Redentore Bellanotte is priced at $700 USD on leather and $785 USD on the steel bracelet. For more information, please visit the Venezianico website.
