Watch (origin)

It is now an established fact - Enrico Morpurgo proved it some years ago - that the first person ever to make a watch was a certain Pietro Guido at the Court of Mantua around 1505. The idea of reducing small portable clocks to ceremonial objects to be carried around on one's person for show - hence the French term "montre" - took hold in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, in Italy, Germany and also France. It was merely the natural consequence of the gradual miniaturisation of clocks. In Southern Germany, the region of Nuremberg and Augsburg saw the first flicker of industrial development. Professor Morpurgo, with the help of iconographic documents, has even advanced 1460 as the birth date of the watch in north Italy.

A portable timepiece that functions in all positions. A watch consists essentially of three parts: the movement which comprises the mechanical workings, parts and mechanisms needed to keep time; the case which protects the movement; the dial and hands which indicate the time. A watch can be worn in various ways such as, for example, a pocket watch, wristwatch, brooch watch. Different types of watches: sports watches, automobile watches, marine watches, Turkish watches, Chinoise watches, etc. Watches with special features: no-hands watches, barometer watches, calendar watches.