In the Garden of Eden, it was a serpent that lured Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, leading us to perceive this slithering seductress as a terrifying yet intriguing idol. While some branded it an omen, others romanticized its unique elegance — and as humanity’s fascination with wrist-wrapping jewellery grew through the medieval, industrial, and modern ages, the serpent’s coil remained its natural muse.
For the last 75 years, Roman jeweller, Bvlgari, has celebrated the majestic serpent as their eternally renewing motif of elegance. Being the Chinese Zodiac Calendar’s Year of the Snake, it’s only fitting we spotlight the tale of the Bvlgari Serpenti – here’s a look back at the Bvlgari Serpenti’s slithering trail through time.
The Significance of the Serpent
From the pharaoh’s reign to the Greek and Roman empires, serpents have played a distinct cultural significance. The crowns of pharaohs were adorned by ‘Uraeus’ – a serpent believed to protect them as well as cement the pharaoh’s legitimacy as ruler. Queen Cleopatra was famously known for wearing snake-inspired jewellery. Similarly, the Greek god Apollo’s son, Asclepius – recognized as the god of medicine, carried a staff with a serpent curled around it. This motif is still used today in the field of medicine and healthcare. However, the serpent does have a viciously deadly alter-ego too, best expressed by the monstrous Greek priestess, Medusa and her head of snakes.
Enduring millenniums, the serpent’s allure has only grown potent, creating an eternal perception as a beautiful seductress. In 1839, as a symbol of Prince Albert’s everlasting love for Queen Victoria, he gifted her a personally designed 18-carat gold ring bearing a serpent with rubies for its eyes, diamonds for its mouth and an emerald, her birthstone. For Mexican actress María Félix, Cartier created a serpent-inspired necklace in 1968, featuring a pair of emeralds for ryes and set in platinum, white and yellow gold.
The Tale of Tubogas
The Serpenti without Tubogas, is like a lion without its mane. Crawling out of the ashes of World War II, Europe was in no mood for extravagance and polished metal was considered a more socio-politically suitable and sober ornamentation choice. This is where an industrial manufacturing technique from the 1920s – ‘Tubogas’ gained popularity – named after tubes made from articulated bands for the transportation of pressurized gas.
By the 1940s, Bvlgari turned this modest industrial pipe design into subtle coils crafted from precious metals, creating a rope-like silhouette for its bracelets and necklaces. Assembled without any soldering, Tubogas demanded skill, time, and patience to wrap long bands of gold around a steel core, completely concealing its inner structure while offering flexibility. With a sleek, rope-like body and flexibly layered architecture, it was a natural fit for the soon-to-be-born Bvlgari Serpenti.
First Coils of the Bvlgari Serpenti
Introduced in 1948 as ‘jewellery-watches’ gained prominence, the Bvlgari Serpenti was an icon on arrival with its Tubogas-style wrist-wrapping body with hidden dials nestled in snakeheads. These heads could be flipped open to reveal the watch face within – cleverly blending haute joaillerie with avant-garde watchmaking.
By the 1950s, Bvlgari’s Serpenti evolved into increasingly intricate forms. The maison began experimenting with a hexagonal scale motif, colourful enamel “scales” in cloisonné patterns, and gemstones, sapphires and rubies for snake eyes – elevating the snake’s realism and ornamental grandeur. Moving from one mesmerizing form to the next, the Bvlgari Serpenti became fitting for red carpet, office, and Sunday brunches.
Timeless Feminine Flair
The three decades that followed cemented the Bvlgari Serpenti not only as a hallmark motif but also as a global cultural icon. Through the 60s and 70s, amidst bold shifts in fashion and design, Bvlgari reinterpreted the serpent by experimenting with exotic materials like lapis lazuli, coral, jade, onyx, and turquoise to embellish the scales.
A pivotal cultural moment came when Elizabeth Taylor wore her personal Serpenti watch on the set of Cleopatra in Rome in 1962 at Cinecittà Studios. As Taylor gifted herself the timepiece from Rome, it gained popularity also because of an infamous love triangle between her, her husband Eddie Fisher, and co-star Richard Burton.
Changing Its Skin for the 21st Century
Reinvented in every era, anticipating every style with dazzling intricacy, the Serpenti’s glittering scales, hypnotic coil, and bedazzling flair made it a feminine icon unlike any other. In 2010, Bvlgari combined two of its most cherished hallmarks – Tubogas body and serpentine head, creating the Serpenti Tubogas collection. Around this time, Bvlgari also began reinterpreting the Serpenti in pure jewellery pieces with an experimental collection of precious metals and jewels – take 2012’s extra-long necklace of emerald and turquoise beads, followed by 2014’s trio of high jewellery watches with the serpent’s head resting over its tail. In the coming years, the ‘Twist Your Time’ or ‘Serpenti Twist’ collection was introduced bearing a wrap-around leather strap.
Hypnotic, Transformative, Eternally Reborn – The Serpenti Seduttori and Serpenti Tubogas with Automatic Movements
With 2019’s Serpenti Seduttori, completely reinterpreted the snake’s silhouette with bracelet beads representing snakeskin scales – creating a brand-new creative canvas for jewel enrichment and modern timekeeping. Finally, at LVMH Watch Week 2025, the Serpenti’s evolution wasn’t cosmetic but mechanical, with the new BVS100 Lady Solotempo miniature automatic movement, a spiritual successor of the BVL150 and Piccolissimo movement.
However, most recently at Watches & Wonders 2025, the Serpenti Aeterna had the world smitten again. Redesigning the iconic Serpenti silhouette by stripping out its eyes, scales, and mouth, it focuses purely on fluid form. Cast in pink gold and white gold, they featured a snow set of brilliant-cut diamonds including the crown, and an ingenious clasp mechanism that required two years of development.
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