History of Technology: How Enrico Tedeschi Saved the Guglielmo Marconi Collection

Enrico Tedeschi stopped the auction that almost scattered the historical Guglielmo Marconi Collection around the world in 1997

One of Marconi’s first radio receivers (c.1896) (left), microphone used for first radio broadcast in 1920 (right) — Image: Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, U.K.

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In September 2016, my quest to find a museum of vintage electronics in Brighton, England led me to the owner of over 10,000 artifacts. I found out he had held a short exhibition hosted at the Hove Library: The Sinclair Archeology.

Sir Clive Sinclair himself came down from London to Brighton since the exhibition was in his honor.

I was eager to meet this Italian man who seemed to be a walking encyclopedia of Dead Media. I wrote him an email expressing my interest in his remarkable personal collection; I wanted to learn about his journey toward acquiring it. I wanted to learn about him and tell his story.

I had read he offered guided visits to his collection in his own home, because he could not find any support to create a permanent exhibition.

Enrico Tedeschi was an Italian-born independent computer software professional, dead media historian, writer, and a passionate private collector of electronics for over half a century.