and ever since I was a little girl I had been fortunate enough to meet him often at our house. When he arrived at the villa everyone was struck by his tall figure dressed in the purple cardinal’s robes. He was good looking and impressive and he emanated a great spirituality.
Elettra’s godmother was Queen Elena who gave her a beautiful diamond medal and a little gold and pearl necklace. Her majesty was represented by a lady in waiting, the Duchess of Laurenzana. The christening ceremony was followed by a reception in the garden. The owners of the villa, Prince and Princess Odescalchi were present. Enzo and Vittoria were close friends of ours and I remember them with great affection. Our friendship continues with their children. Naturally all my closest relatives were there: Prince Orsini, Prince and Princess Barberini, Marchese and Marchesa Sacchetti, Marchese and Marchesa Serlupi Crescenzi, my aunt Maria, my father’s sister who was married to Marchese Guglielmi D’Antognolla. Among our friends were the Princes and Princesses Colonna, Massimo, Chigi, Borghese, del Drago, Ruspoli, Lancellotti, and Torlonia, Duke and Duchess Lante delle Rovere, Duke and Duchess Sforza Cesarini, Marchese and Marchesa Theodoli and the Governor of Rome Prince Francesco Boncompagni Ludovisi with his wife Princess Nicoletta.
The weather was fine that day and the sea was calm. After the christening Guglielmo asked Cardinal Pacelli if he would like to hear some messages from Australia in the radio station on board the Elettra. This was still a great novelty as the first official communication had taken place only a short time before. The Cardinal, who was always very interested in my husband’s experiments, was delighted to accept the invitation. The Elettra which was anchored in front of Villa Odescalchi had all her flags flying and looked more beautiful than ever that day. His Eminence, accompanied by Guglielmo, went out to the yacht in our motorboat and was ceremoniously welcomed on board the Elettra by the Captain and the crew. He stayed for some time in the radio station and listened with interest to Guglielmo’s explanations and to the radio signals and conversations from far away countries.
Just a few members of my family and our closest friends stayed on after Cardinal Pacelli’s departure. Guglielmo took Prince Odescalchi’s children, Livio, Anna, Ladislao and Alessandro on board the Elettra so that they could visit the yacht and listen to the radio messages that came from far away. Guido and Maria were too little to go. I can still see my husband’s happy expression at the end of that exceptional day.
Keeping a promise he made us at the time, and therefore as an exception, a few years later Cardinal Pacelli who by then had become Pope Pius XII administered First Communion and Confirmation to our daughter Elettra in the Matilde Chapel in the Vatican. When his Holiness Pius XII died in 1958 it left a great void in our lives.
VILLA GRIFFONE
Not long after our marriage I asked my husband “What made you think of inventing radio-telegraphy?” He answered that ever since he was eight years old he had been sure that he would invent something very useful for humanity which would make him famous so that he would be considered different from other men. He did indeed succeed in doing so. With his genius and perseverance he was able to abolish distances, accomplishing the miracle of instant communication through space. He told me that when he was fourteen years old, using some wires and a broom-stick, he built the first antenna! He established the first contact between the air and the earth from the stone balcony at the front of the house where he spent his holidays with his parents on the sea front of Livorno.
Guglielmo had heard about Hertz’s discoveries in the field of electro-magnetic waves; he was excited by the discoveries and immediately had the idea of using them in his experiments on wireless communications over a distance. He understood the importance of the herzian waves but having a deeper and more complete personal intuition about this phenomenon he made a thorough study of them in order to develop and extend his research. Although he was so young, he was very determined and even during the summer months while he was enjoying his holidays in the country or at the seaside he always dedicated hours and hours to his scientific research work.
During the winter when the weather was colder the Marconi family used to move for a month or two to the milder climate of Livorno or Florence. In Livorno they would rent a flat in Viale Margherita with a view of the sea. Here Guglielmo met Professor Vincenzo Rosa, a professor of physics, who immediately noted that the young Marconi had an aptitude and a passion for physics and saw that his studies were very individual and quite different from those of his contemporaries. He realized that here was a brilliant mind whose depth and breadth of spirit and scientific ability he admired. They also used to meet sometimes in Bologna. In Livorno, in the State Technical High School at No. 9, Via Cairoli, there is a memorial plaque in honour of Guglielmo Marconi to commemorate his attendance at the school and his frequent visits there. Another memorial plaque was dedicated to him by the Scientific High School of Florence in Piazza Santa Trinità. Both cities wanted to commemorate his studies and residence there. The first time I returned to Italy soon after our marriage I went with my husband to see these two plaques. I remember so well his saying to me, with a smile, “It’s a rare thing for a person to read his own memorial plaque during his lifetime!”
The following are some of the events of his youth and his first inventions. My husband came from a distinguished and respected family from Bologna. His father Giuseppe Marconi was a well-known landowner with extensive agricultural estates both in Emilia and Romagna. A successful businessman, he took a particular interest in all his farm-workers because he wanted them to live in respectable comfort with their families on his land. Guglielmo’s mother Annie was born Annie Jameson, a member of the Jameson family of Irish whiskey distillers. Her grandfather John Jameson was born in Alloa in Scotland and became Sheriff Clerk of Clackmannonshire. He went to Ireland and bought an interest in a distillery in Bow Street in Dublin. Her father Andrew set up a whiskey distillery in Fairfield near Enniscorthy, County Wexford in the south-east of Ireland.
Andrew and his family lived in a beautiful old moated house, Daphne Castle, surrounded by a park near Enniscorthy. Here Annie was born in 1839, one of six children. She was a lovely girl, charming and vivacious. The whole family had a passion for music. It was their favourite occupation and they used to play different instruments together in the evenings. Annie played the piano and she also had a very beautiful soprano voice. To her family’s disapproval (it was quite out of the question for a young girl of good family to become an opera singer in those days) she was offered an engagement to sing at the Covent Garden Opera House in London. She was forbidden to accept but after much discussion and argument she was allowed to go to Italy to study singing with a famous teacher of the time. The Jameson whiskey firm had business contacts with a Bologna banker called De Renoli and Annie was sent to stay with his family. De Renoli’s daughter had died while giving birth to a son, Luigi, and their widowed son-in-law Giuseppe Marconi spent much of his time with them. He was charming and lively with a good sense of humour and he and Annie soon fell in love.
When Annie returned home to Ireland she asked permission to marry Giuseppe. Her family was just as shocked at Annie’s choice of husband as they had been at the thought of her singing at Covent Garden and they refused their consent to the marriage. Annie was ordered to forget him and, apparently obedient, she remained at home and led a social life going to parties and meeting suitable young men approved of by her family. However, she continued to correspond secretly with Giuseppe. She had a far stronger will than anyone realized and her mind was already made up. When she came of age she ran away from home and crossed the stormy waters of the Channel to France while Giuseppe drove across the Alps in his carriage. They met in Boulogne-sur-mer, a romantic town by the sand dunes and were married there on 16th April 1864. She and her family were reconciled after the birth of her first child, Alfonso the following year. Nine years were to go by before the birth of her second son, Guglielmo.
Annie transmitted her love of music to her sons. The two brothers were both gifted musicians. Alfonso played the violin while Guglielmo was a talented pianist. His mother taught him to play from an early age and she would sing while he played. All his life whenever it was possible he arranged to have a piano nearby and if he had a spare
