150th Anniversary of the Birth of Guglielmo Marconi - €1.30

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Guglielmo Marconi, together with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, we pay tribute to a visionary inventor who was the first to envision the possibility of transmitting messages over long distances using wireless telegraphy. Born in Bologna in 1874 into a well-to-do family, Marconi developed an early passion for physics. Thanks to his acquaintance with an elderly telegraph operator, he became interested in practical applications of this technology. This led to the idea of a “wireless telegraph”, a system that would use electromagnetic waves to send signals over distance. In 1895, from the attic window of Villa Griffone, he conducted his first experiment in electromagnetic transmission. One year later, he patented a device capable of transmitting radio signals over a distance of 14 kilometers. Its development progressed rapidly, culminating on December 12, 1901, in the first transatlantic radio transmission between Poldhu, in Cornwall, and Signal Hill, in Newfoundland. The Vatican State owes to Marconi’s genius the creation of “Statio Radiophonica Vaticana”, the technological gem he built in 1931 in just two years, following the direct request of Pope Pius XI. Shortly after the ratification of the Lateran Pacts, the Pope wished to endow the newly established Vatican City with a cutting-edge radio station. The commemorative stamp marking the Marconi anniversary, created by Orietta Rossi, features Guglielmo Marconi at work with a radio device.