The first Bulgari Serpenti bracelet watches appeared in 1948. They combined a spiralled band that coils around the wrist like a snake, made with the Tubogas technique, with a geometric watch dial. In Tubogas work, strips of gold are wrapped around a core without soldering, producing a flexible, rounded band that keeps its shape. The choice of warm yellow gold followed the post-war move away from diamond-set platinum. Bulgari did not make movements at the time, so these early snake watches used Swiss calibres from houses such as Jaeger-LeCoultre, Audemars Piguet and Vacheron Constantin. The serpent theme itself revived snake bracelets the Roman jeweller had first made in the Art Deco period.

From the 1950s and especially the 1960s the Serpenti became more literal, with articulated heads, enamelled scales and gem-set eyes, the hinged head opening to reveal the dial. Many of these pieces used small Jaeger-LeCoultre movements, such as the calibre 496 in a circa 1967 enamel example. Elizabeth Taylor was photographed wearing a Serpenti on the set of Cleopatra in 1962, which made the snake an emblem of the house. Fewer than one hundred enamelled snake jewellery pieces were made in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Serpenti is regarded as one of the defining jewellery watches of the twentieth century, prized by jewellery collectors as much as watch collectors. Vintage enamelled examples reach high prices: a 1965 enamel and diamond Serpenti sold at Christie’s London for about $1.1 million, tripling its estimate and setting a record for a Bulgari snake watch, and Elizabeth Taylor’s own Serpenti watch made $974,500 at Christie’s in New York in 2011. The original 1948 model is no longer produced, but the Serpenti line remains in production: in 2025 Bulgari introduced new Serpenti Tubogas and Serpenti Seduttori models with the in-house Lady Solotempo BVS100 automatic movement.