Guglielmo Marconi

A symbol of Italy's contribution to the great scientific and technological revolutions of modern times, Guglielmo Marconi (Bologna, 1874 - Rome, 1937) embodied the genius of both the inventor and the entrepreneur, capable of establishing and developing the technology and infrastructure of wireless radiotelegraphy on a global scale. Hertz waves were already known to physicists in the 19th century, but it was Marconi who grasped the possibility of using them to transmit messages, bridging great distances and overcoming any obstacle.

On the 150th anniversary of this birth, we celebrate an ingenious, visionary inventor who was able to envision the future, and used his many registered patents to manage and promote both his name and his ideas.

It was 1901 when the first trans-Atlantic radio signal was sent from North America to Europe. This was the first step on the road to the Nobel Prize in Physics, awarded to Marconi - the first Italian ever to receive one - in 1909 at the age of just 35. Marconi's whole life exhorts us to bolster scientific research and use global communication as a vehicle to fuel the spark of knowledge and international dialogue. His extraordinary discoveries can certainly be said to have helped pave the way for the unprecedented scientific progress of the 20th century.