Is this a "Cardinali" lathe from Argentina--or is part of the label not visible? Perhaps the lathe is Spanish in origin - that country having developed a large and very successful machine sector from the 1940s onwards - yet the maker fails to appear in any of the country's industrial listing spanning the 1950s to 1970s owned by the writer.
A simple bar-bed "Genevea" type, the lathe is not only unusually short but also with an excessively large centre height. Fitted with an economical-to-produce headstock with the 2-step drive pulley in aluminium overhung outside the left-hand spindle bearing, the whole arrangement perhaps pointing to manufacture from the late 1930s into the 1940s and 1950s.
Drilled into the outer face of the largest diameter drive pulley was a circle of indexing holes, the engagement pin being moved by knob on the front face of the headstock - from the limited amount of room between pulley and casting it's likely that the pin and knob were cut with rack-and-pinion gearing. Seemingly offered in what appears to have been a rather roughly-constructed box, the lathe came complete with a small set of wire collets and perhaps four wax collets as well. How the lathe was intended to be driven is not known, though as few makers of lathes for watchmaker ever included a countershaft in their fitted boxes, it is likely to have been a separate, extra-cost item.
If you have a Cardinali lathe, the writer would be interested to hear from you.