A special event was held on board the Italian Navy's training ship Palinuro, moored from 30 August to today at the Moll in the port of Barcelona - where the America's Cup is underway - to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Guglielmo Marconi's birth. The event, organised by the Marconi Foundation and the Navy, in collaboration with the Consulate General of Italy, was an opportunity to celebrate the pairing of the scientist, inventor of the wireless telegraph, with the sea and navigation, on the 125th anniversary of the first radio broadcast of the America's Cup, conducted by Marconi himself in 1899.
Through the 'Marconi & the America's Cup' exhibition, the evening's guests were able to retrace Marconi's entrepreneurial adventure, which led him to found the Marconi International Marine Communication Company Ldt, for communication between ships and land stations, and the Bolognese scientist's relationship with the Italian Navy, key to the progress of wireless communication.
The commander of the Palinuro and frigate captain Samuele Mondino with the Consul General of Italy in Barcelona, Emanuele Manzitti, welcomed Matteo Plazzi, representative of Prada Pirelli's Luna Rossa team, Prince Guglielmo Giovannelli Marconi, grandson of the Nobel Prize winner, and Giulia Fortunato, president of the Guglielmo Marconi Foundation and of the Marconi 150 national committee, set up by the Ministry of Culture for the commemoration of his birth.
During the course of the evening, some areas by Giacomo Puccini, with whom Marconi had a deep friendship, were performed by young artists from the Accademia del Teatro di San Carlo in Naples.
The schooner Palinuro, a training ship of the Italian Navy since 1950, will make a stopover in Mahon on its return voyage to Italy, after three months of training for the students of the 'Francesco Morosini' Naval Military College in Venice and the Petty Officers' Manoeuvre School, before continuing its navigation in the Adriatic and participating in the 'Barcolana' regatta in the Gulf of Trieste.
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