L'HORLOGE du PAPE qui a RÉVOLUTIONNÉ L'HORLOGERIE (et surtout Audemars Piguet)

Let me tell you the story of one of the most important masterpieces in the history of watchmaking. Imagine for a moment. You are quietly browsing auctions of art objects, clocks of all kinds, and antique furniture, when suddenly you come across an advertisement: A clock, where you can read the time wandering at night thanks to a light within the clock, with a silent and perfectly working mechanism, a dial painted by one of the most famous Italian painters in the world; and above all, this monumental piece, the personal clock of Pope Alexander VII, dates from the 17th century and has never been restored. 📸 My Instagram:   / la_couronne_off   ► For any business proposals: [email protected] Six months after his election, in October, the Pope asked his butler to provide him with a clock that would be both silent and tell the time without requiring a lit oil lamp to see the dial. The Pope, a light sleeper, had difficulty sleeping because of the noise of the classic clock escapement, not to mention the irritation caused by a lamp left on display in his bedroom. Apparently, the Campani brothers had already spoken with the butler, Cardinal Farnese, and were working on a silent clock, but now they had to find an ingenious method to tell the time in the dark without an external lamp. The two problems had to be solved together, and Tommaso and his brothers developed ingenious solutions: An entirely new silent escapement, achieved by constantly rotating the last wheel of the clockwork train instead of the stop-start action of a traditional pendulum clock. Rejecting the traditional dial mounted with a pair of hands, the brothers chose to indicate the time on a slowly moving disc that describes a 180-degree arc over the course of an hour (much like the movement of the sun over the course of a day). Each disc is pierced and backlit by an open flame inside the clock body so that the path of the shining hour can be followed. A wooden clock, I remind you. In a semicircular opening set into the painted sky, a rotating disc pierced with two round holes can be seen. Each of these holes reveals a series of plaques indicating the hours, one with odd numbers and the other with even numbers. A plate takes one hour to move across the dial. When one disc disappears on the right side, the next appears on the left side, with the corresponding number visible. The dial is also pierced around the top of the main aperture, with the quarters I, II, III, and half-quarters drilled in the form of inverted teardrop holes. At the base of the dial, an opening can be seen that reveals the pendulum, allowing one to know if the clock is in working order; it is literally a running indicator. The front door panel provides access to the clock mechanism, as can be guessed from the lock to the right of the dial, which resembles a large spring barrel with a silent crank escapement and a short pendulum. The movement is attached to the back of the dial by a horizontal brass bridge. The movement is ingenious in its silent operation, thanks to the drive of three train wheels mounted on stepped taps, ending in a lead regulator with an eccentric drive to a bell crank via a connecting rod, which ends in a short coil pendulum mounted on an adjustable friction disc for fine adjustment. The rotation of this keeps the entire mechanism in constant motion and without any ticking. Pietro Tommaso invented a silent "escapement" in which he converted the reciprocal movement into rotary motion, resulting in continuous rather than intermittent movement. Since there was no "escapement" as such, the clock operated in complete silence. Finally, the clock is wound with a key, a mechanism often found in pocket watches, the original key of which is still in the work today, like all the other parts, as everything has been perfectly preserved. And the clock has never been restored. More than three centuries later, it shines as brightly as the first day. ___ Timecodes: 0:00 - Introduction 0:58 - The Campani Brothers 2:28 - The Reason for Its Creation 3:58 - Who Created the Clock? 7:13 - The Decorations 10:44 - How It Works 13:52 - Where is the Clock? 14:39 - Conclusion