Venezianico Nereide Titanio Introduces Titanium to Venetian Dive Watch

Considering that Italy is such a prominent peninsula, it’s not surprising that the country has an affinity with the sea. Panerai are well known for their military dive watch heritage but they’re not the only Italian watch brand in the dive watch game. Venezianico, a Venice-based brand, has also proven themselves adept in the arena of aquatic timepieces, particularly with the Nereide collection. After a series of launches exploring the world of integrated bracelets via the Arsenale, they’re back to their diving roots with the launch of their first Nereide in titanium, the Venezianico Nereide Titanio.

The use of titanium makes a lot of sense for dive watches as the high strength to density ratio makes it a very lightweight and tough material (though it can be susceptible to scratches). This lightweight property helps to offset the fact that diving watches have to be large enough to maintain legibility underwater – the Venezianico Nereide Titanio measures 42mm in diameter – which can result in them being quite heavy outside of the water when produced in steel.

On a cultural level, titanium has a thematic relationship to Venice as well. Titanium is named after the titans, mythological beings from Greco-Roman folklore and Venice is full of iconography dedicated to them. The most famous piece of iconography being the statue of Atlas holding up the world at the Doge’s Palace. The strength of Atlas finds itself mirrored in the strength of titanium. You’ll also find a depiction of him on the watch’s solid caseback.

Looking at the dial, it’s a classic dive watch display with a clean, easy to read layout featuring large baton hour markers coated with plenty of lume. A lot of dive watches favour monochrome displays in order to create a strong contrast between them and the hour markers but here Venezianico have opted for a subtle gradient that does much the same thing. The centre of the dial is a dark navy blue that transitions to black around the periphery of the display. Compared to previous colourful editions of the Nereide such as the GMT Rosa featured here, the Venezianico Nereide Titanio feels serious and taciturn. Which just furthers the impression that this is a no-nonsense professional dive watch.

I think the term professional dive watch is warranted here because it touts a 300m water resistance rating, which is enough to make it actually practical to wear while scuba diving. Check out our guide to water resistance to learn more about what activities we recommend for certain ratings. On top of that it has a uni-directional rotating bezel, also made from titanium, with 60-minute graduation ideal for timing the length of your dive.

Inside, the Venezianico Nereide Titanio houses the Sellita SW200-1 automatic movement. It’s arguably the most common Swiss calibre in the entire industry, a solid enough work horse that gets the job done. Like many brands who use this movement, Venezianico are still working through their stock of the slightly older version of the SW200-1 with 38-hour power reserve as opposed to the updated 41-hour version. It would be nice to see them upgrade at some point but I say that about every watch still rocking the older version.

The Venezianico Nereide Titanio is limited to 500 pieces at a price of €1,095 (approx. £900) and pre-orders open on December 27^th at 2pm GMT. For a titanium dive watch with solid specs and a great, legible design, that’s a good price. It’s also nice to see a brand take a step forward and expand their range of materials.

More details at Venezianico. 

​Oracle Time 

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