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MARCONI, GUGLIELMO. (1874-1937). Italian physicist, inventor, developer of wireless telegraphy, and winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize in physics. SP. (“Guglielmo Marconi”). 1p. Large 4to. N.p., (1931). A fine studio portrait showing a seated Marconi in profile, dressed in a suit with his hands folded on his lap and holding his hat, taken by the Trent photography studio G. Brunner & C. In his lapel is a pin bearing the logo of the Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF) or National Fascist Party. Beginning at the age of 20, Marconi experimented with electromagnetic waves from which he conceived the idea of wireless telegraph communication. In 1900, he filed his famous Patent No. 7777 for Improvements in Apparatus for Wireless Telegraphy, which allowed stations to operate simultaneously at different wavelengths without interference. Marconi’s fame was secured one year later when he became the first to transmit wireless signals across the Atlantic. After winning the Nobel Prize in 1909, he continued to experiment in radio communication, eventually leading his company to build short-wave broadcasting stations all around the world. Marconi devoted his efforts to affairs of state after World War I (for example, as Italy’s representative to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference), but continued his experiments in radio, and in 1932 discovered that microwaves “could be received at a point much farther below the optical horizon than had been predicted by any theory, [a] phenomenon [that] was exploited in later ‘scatter propagation’ circuits, which added new reliability to communications in arctic regions,” (DSB). In 1923, Marconi joined the PNF and in 1930, Mussolini made him president of the Royal Academy of Italy. As such, he was a member of the Fascist Grand Council, the primary ruling organization of the Fascist government. A handsome image, darkly signed in the lower blank margin and additionally signed by the photographer beneath the image’s lower right corner. Very light silvering. In very good condition.

Item #16931

Price: $2,000