Pompiano · since 1930
There is one gesture that has been repeated in the Ravelli household for almost a century: opening the case-back of a watch, looking inside and working out what isn't turning. It all began there, long before there was a shop window or a sign above the door.
Oreficeria Ravelli is the Ravelli family's jewellery shop, in the centre of Pompiano, in the province of Brescia. The experience of selling watches, jewellery and gifts, and of repairing watches and clocks, has been handed down from one generation to the next: from grandfather Adamo, to his son Giovanni — better known as Gianni — to Giovanni's son Tiziano, who runs the business today.
Adamo and the alarm clocks that rang again
The story begins in 1930 with Adamo Ravelli, a passionate repairer of watches and alarm clocks. It was not yet a trade with a nameplate on the door: it was a passion cultivated with patience, one piece at a time, at a bench at home.
That passion did not stay there. His son Giovanni was already helping him with repairs as a boy, learning by watching: how you take a movement apart, how you clean it, how you put back together a mechanism that has hundreds of parts and not one too many.
Adamo Ravelli It all begins with him, in 1930.
The door opens to retail
By the Sixties, Giovanni's repair shop was well known in the village. In 1969 came the step that changed everything: beside his workbench, Giovanni set aside a small corner devoted to retail. It was the first commercial start of the business, and the date from which the shop counts its years.
The speciality, however, remained what it had always been: horological micro-mechanics. Wristwatches, alarm clocks, pendulum clocks, longcase and wall clocks.
Giovanni Ravelli in front of the first shop window, in the late Sixties.
The historic sign «Gala — Gioielleria Ravelli».
From mechanics to gemstones
Anyone who repairs watches soon learns to look at things closely. Over the years, that same attention also turned to precious stones: Giovanni trained in the subject and brought fine objects, jewellery and quality gifts into the shop.
The shop became what it is today: a place where you buy and a place where you have things repaired. The two together — which is rarer than it sounds.
The watchmaker's bench where every job begins and ends.
Behind the counter The business has always been family-run.
The third generation, with Swiss training
The passion has taken hold of Tiziano, too, who runs the business today. Before taking over the bench he took the long road: two years at the CAPAC School of Watchmaking, the Politecnico del Commercio in Milan, through to the professional watchmaker's qualification — a 2,100-hour course — and then four specialist courses in Switzerland, at the ETA Technical Training Centre in Grenchen, the Swatch Group's movement manufacture: mechanical watches, chronographs, quartz and Autoquartz calibres.
That is no small detail. It means that when you leave your watch here, it does not travel to a workshop hundreds of kilometres away: it stays here, and the person working on it knows exactly what they are doing.
In the classroom, at the bench Training is the part of the craft you never see.
Tiziano Ravelli in the Pompiano shop.
Diplomas and certifications
ETA Grenchen (CH) — mechanical watches, 2004
Professional Watchmaker qualification — Lombardy Region, CAPAC Milan, 2005
Two-year course for watchmakers — CAPAC School of Watchmaking / Assorologi, 2005
ETA Grenchen (CH) — Autoquartz and chrono quartz calibres, 2005
ETA Grenchen (CH) — quartz and chrono calibre seminar, 2005
ETA Grenchen (CH) — chronographs, 2005
Philip Watch certified workshop for after-sales service, since 2023
The workshop is right here
The shop's real strength is its after-sales service. The workshop is inside the jewellery shop, with state-of-the-art equipment suited to every kind of job, and here we carry out servicing and repairs of any watch, clock and piece of jewellery. Since 2023 the workshop is also Philip Watch certified for after-sales service.
Having it in-house changes three things:
- No third parties, and so no middle-man costs ending up on your estimate.
- We tell you what's wrong, after opening it, not after shipping it away.
- Waiting times that depend on us, not on someone else's queue.
What we repair: wristwatches, alarm clocks, pendulum clocks, longcase and wall clocks, jewellery.
What you'll find in the shop
Beyond the workshop, the shop is a place to choose a gift at your own pace:
- Watches — wrist, longcase, wall and alarm clocks
- Jewellery: bracelets, necklaces, rings, wedding bands, earrings, pendants and accessories in gold, silver, steel, pearl and glass
- Crystal and silverware
- Gift ideas: fountain and rollerball pens, frames, photo albums, sacred icons, ornaments, paperweights
Chosen with births, christenings, communions and confirmations, graduations, weddings, birthdays and anniversaries in mind. The price ranges are deliberately wide: there is the small token and there is the important piece.
Inside the shop
Crystal and silverware on display.
If you have a watch that's been sitting in a drawer for years, bring it in: looking inside costs nothing.