Italian Hours

Italian Hours is the exhibition catalogue dedicated to discovering the grand Italian tradition of mechanical watchmaking. The unique and unrepeatable Gian Carlo Del Vecchio collection is presented, as well as two new rooms in the Museo Galileo on the ground floor dedicated to mechanical watchmaking. Visitors will find - among others - the very special 16th-century clock with canonical hour wheel, which Del Vecchio himself donated to the museum, never exhibited before.

In dialogue with the Museum's permanent collection, Italian Hours will allow visitors to grasp the evolution of an instrument that has taken on forms, characteristics and modes of use of extraordinary variety. From ancient sundials to atomic clocks, the book sets out to reconstruct the entire history of civilisation, from the ancient peoples who first questioned how to adapt the life cycle of humans to that of the gods or of nature.

Whether one is talking about water clocks or mechanical clocks, sundials, quadrants, sandglasses, table clocks, weight-driven clocks, alarm clocks, grains of sand or towers or monasteries, whether one is fascinated by the precision achieved by the craftsmen of that time with means that we would consider very meagre today, or by the mastery of the decorations and mechanisms, anyone will find many reasons for being interested in unfolding the chapters of this book. Clocks have taken on a crucial role in society, synchronising the rhythm first in public places and then, as a result of their progressive miniaturisation, in private life, re-proposing man's eternal challenge with time in everyday life.