Davide Passoni

“Mobile engine of toothed wheels, it tears the day apart and divides it into hours.” This is how the sonnet Orologio da rote opens, written in the 17th century by the Friulian poet Ciro di Pers, and later the subject of my university thesis. The focus of that thesis was different, yet I first encountered this poet through these lines — perhaps because watches have always lived within me. And on my wrist. My first was a digital Timex (it was the 1970s…), back in elementary school, and I never really stopped. Buying them. Trading them. Selling them. Loving them. Studying them. And since many people aspire to turn their passion into their profession, over the course of my long career I eventually found my way to writing about watchmaking: first as the editor of a quarterly magazine, and later contributing to national publications and some of Italy’s most authoritative online magazines. One of them is “insane.” Can you guess which one?