I think basically the Udine clock (from the photo that someone posted here recently) uses a Lavet stepper motor as used in quartz clocks but bigger and operating on a higher voltage.  The latter are trivial to drive from an Arduino, as you say you just need a bridge driver that can run on 48 V and few lines of Arduino code - mind you if it's getting pulses from a 'Nome initially they might need some debouncing first.