In 1909 Guglielmo Marconi was the first Italian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics. Even though he was still young - Marconi was 35 - the prize came at the end of an extraordinarily intense period of work that had lasted almost 15 years, beginning in the laboratory of his family home - Villa Griffone, in the hills around Bologna - with his first experiments of wireless telegraphy.

However, the theatre of his pioneering work in radio communications were the Atlantic coasts: Great Britain was a second home for Marconi as inventor but a first home for his career as entrepreneur, Ireland - where his mother Annie Jameson was from - hosted important stations for his first transatlantic connections. Canada and the United States saw triumphs of the young Italian visionary who between 1901 and 1903 managed, in the midst of polemics, scepticism and great wonder, to receive the first radiotelegraphic signals across the huge natural obstacle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Between 1895 and 1903 Marconi was the matchless pioneer in radio communications, but despite speculation that he could win the Nobel Prize at the end of that period, the years that he took to consolidate his remarkable achievements were still hard and demanding. A fundamental step in the process was to launch the first regular public radio telegraphic service across the Atlantic in October 1907.

No doubts that the exceptional usefulness of emergency radio was proved when passengers were rescued from the liner Republic in January 1909 mainly for the merits of the radio operator Binns, who worked for the Marconi Company. It was in that year that had begun with the clamour over theRepublic rescue that Marconi won - along with the German scientist Karl Ferdinand Braun - the Nobel Prize for Physics «in recognition of their contribution to the development of wireless telegraphy».

Marconi's career continued for many years and on dozens of occasions he was celebrated as a living symbol of radio communications, but there is no doubt that being awarded the Nobel Prize was a fundamental moment for him. At just 21, he initiated a true revolution in telecommunications and devoted his entire career to the development of the radio, combining scientific skills, entrepreneurial qualities, great intuition and extraordinary determination.

The Nobel Prize centenary was therefore a fitting occasion for a programme which was rich of initiatives celebrating the great importance of Marconi as inventor and entrepreneur in our present times. Marconi was a cosmopolitan figure whose invention and its further developments are still today a powerful tool for humanity.

Hans Hildebrand, Presentation Speech, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, december 10^th, 1909 

Guglielmo Marconi, Nobel Lecture, The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, december 11^th, 1909 

The writings of Guglielmo Marconi originate from various sources: authentic texts penned by the scientist (letters, manuscripts, accounts, patents, etc.), or transcriptions of Marconi's speeches, conferences and interviews in Italy and abroad.

The research, individuation, acquisition and filing of the works, almost all in Italian and English, is one of the activities that the Marconi Foundation undertakes by statute.

We are in the process of making the digitization of the writings which have been acquired and archived to date.

Guglielmo Marconi's principal writings

• La telegrafia senza fili 1899
• Wireless telegraphy 1899
• La telegrafia senza fili 1900
• Improvements in transmitting electrical impulses and signals 1901
• Radiotelegrafia sintonica 1901
• The practicability of wireless telegraphy 1902
• Il progresso della telegrafia elettrica attraverso lo spazio 1902
• Some wireless telegraph patents 1903
• United States Patent Office. Guglielmo Marconi of London, England 1903
• Sulla telegrafia senza fili 1903
• Syntonic wireless telegraphy 1904
• Recenti progressi della Radiotelegrafia 1905
• Mr. Marconi on wireless telegraphy 1908
• Trans-Atlantic wireless telegraphy 1908
• The most recent developments of wireless telegraphy 1909
• Nobel Lecture 1909  - Lezione tenuta in occasione del conferimento del Premio Nobel 1909
• Radiotelegrafia 1911
• Il progresso della telegrafia senza fili 1912 
• Mr. Marconi's evidence in chief 1913
• Nuovi metodi per la produzione delle oscillazioni elettriche continue e per la loro utilizzazione nella radiotelegrafia 1914
• I recenti progressi della radiotelegrafia 1914
• Fenomeni non spiegati e problemi insoluti attinenti alla radiotelegrafia 1916
• Some recent developments in wireless telegraphy 1921
• La radiotelegrafia 1922
• Results obtained over very long distance by short wave directional wireless telegraphy more generally referred to... 1924
• Risultati ottenuti su lunghissime distanze mediante la radiotelegrafia direzionale ad onde corte 1924
• Conferenza tenuta all'Archiginnasio di Bologna, in occasione della cerimonia per il trentesimo anniversario della telegrafia senza fili 1926
• Radiocomunicazioni 1926
• Le radiocomunicazioni a fascio 1927
• Radio communications 1927
• Multiplex system of radio communication 1928
• Fenomeni accompagnanti le radiotrasmissioni 1930
• La ricerca scientifica e la crisi odierna 1932
• Scienza e fascismo 1932
• Radiocomunicazioni a onde cortissime 1932
• A decade of scientific research in Italy 1933
• Sulla propagazione di micro-onde a notevole distanza 1933
• L'opera del Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche 1934
• Discorso di S. E. Guglielmo Marconi al Congresso di elettro-radiobiologia 1934
• Le appplicazioni diatermiche delle micro-onde 1935
• Radiocomunicazioni 1936