Marconi: His life with images

By Barbara Valotti

Marconi travelled across the Atlantic more than eighty times, he made two world tours and visited dozens of countries, but what he did above all was to connect far distant places by his wireless systems of communication.
At twenty Marconi settled in London, at forty-five he chose to live on a yacht, and at fifty-three he settled in Rome. Yet, he never forgot his roots or the places where his invention took shape: Bologna and the Porrettana, Pontecchio and Villa Griffone.
When he was awarded the Nobel Prize at the age of thirty-five, he was already one of the most famous men in the world. Marconi’s biography is rich in drama and detail. In this reference guide we provide a brief chronology of his life in text and image, which invites you, the reader, to get closer to Marconi and his human and scientific adventures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andrea Carbone
• Release date: Sep 29, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465942555

Book preview

1874

Guglielmo Marconi is born on the 25th of April in Bologna to Giuseppe Marconi and Annie Jameson. Giuseppe, Marconi's father, is a fifty-year-old landowner originally from Capugnano, a small village nestled in the Appenines Mountains that straddle Tuscany and Emilia. Giuseppe lived and worked in Bologna for some time before Guglielmo is born and already has a son, Luigi, by his first wife Giulia de' Renoli, who died in 1858.

Guglielmo's mother, Annie Jameson, was born in the south of Ireland and belongs to an illustrious Scottish family, the Jamesons, who own a flourishing whisky distillery. She meets Giuseppe during an extended stay in Bologna where she is studying opera. They marry in 1864. They move to an apartment in the centre of Bologna but also spend time at their country residence Villa Griffone in Pontecchio. Annie is little more than thirty years old when Guglielmo is born. At the time of his birth, Annie and Giuseppe already have a nine-year-old son called Alfonso.

1875-1883

Villa Griffone becomes the official family residence. When the children are very young, Annie brings them to Bedford, England, on at least one occasion and later she takes them to milder climates, mostly in Tuscany. At first the winters are spent in Florence but then she favours Livorno where one of her sisters lives. She often brings the boys to the famous Porretta spa.

Guglielmo, apparently a sickly child, quickly learns to read and write in Italian thanks to his tutor Germano Bollini. His mother teaches him to read and write in English and to play the piano.

1884-1890

Between the ages of ten and fifteen, Guglielmo attends different schools as the family travels back and forth between Emilia and Tuscany. It is for this reason that he finds it difficult to adapt to a regime of regular study. Guglielmo grows up perfectly bilingual and although his peculiar accent provokes much teasing from his schoolmates, his bilingualism proves very useful for him in the future. He also develops a passion for natural phenomena and at the age of

Reviews for Marconi

[Andrew and Penny Forbes · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is beautifully written and is most informative
Andrew Forbes