Aust. Historical Medals

Lot 1031    SESSION 4 (4.30PM MONDAY 30TH AUGUST)    Aust. Historical Medals

Estimate $350
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $280

AUSTRALIA'S 150TH ANNIVERSARY, 1788-1938, in silvered (57mm) (C.1938/7), by Amor, a presentation piece impressed on edge, 'Her Excellency The Marchesa Marconi,'. Small edge nick, otherwise good very fine and very interesting, see footnote.

Was this medal ever presented to the Marchesa as it seems there was more detail to be added to the edge inscription, note the comma after Marconi. Perhaps the medal remained in storage with the medallist Amor after the Marchesa was unable to come to Australia (see details below).

The following was reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 25 September 1937, p16.
'The Marchesa Marconi Australian Visit Warm Welcome Assured.

The Minister In Charge of the 150th Anniversary Celebrations (Mr. Dunningham), said yesterday that Australians would extend a very warm welcome to the Marchesa Marconi, widow of the great pioneer of wireless, who has accepted an Invitation to attend the 150th Anniversary celebrations next year. The Marchesa will be accompanied by her daughter, Elettra.

The invitation was extended by Sir Ernest Fisk, on behalf of the Institution of Radio Engineers of Australia. Formerly the Contessa Maria Cristina Bezzi Scali, the Marchesa Marconi is the daughter of Brigadier-General Scali, of the Guardia Nobile. She married the Marchese Marconi in 1927, when she was 23.

The Marchese Marconi had accepted the Institution's invitation to attend the World Convention of Radio Engineers, to be held in Sydney from April 4 to 14, 1938, and Marchesa Marconi was to have accompanied him. Following Marconi's death, Sir Ernest Fisk, who is chairman of the convention, repeated the Institution's invitation to the Marchesa Marconi, when he met her abroad recently, and she informed him that she would be delighted to accept it.'

The Marchesa's husband was famous and shared a noble prize for physics in 1909. Much of his research work was done in Britain from 1896 as the Italian government was at first not interested in his work on hertzian waves (electromagnetic waves in the radar and radio range). As the result of his scientific work, much of which was carried out in the 1920s on his 700 ton yacht, Marconi became one of the world's most famous Italians. He joined the Fascist Party in 1923 and was conferred with the title of Marchese (Maquis) in 1929. Despite his declining health he was chosen in 1935 to make a tour of Latin America and Europe to defend his country's invasion of Abyssinia. However, he suffered a series of heart attacks and died in 1937. This is the prelude to why the Marchesa was invited to Sydney to take the place of her famous husband and was probably a diplomatic type operation that the British government encouraged.

Unfortunately the Marchesa's visit never eventuated because of illness and that as she was intending to travel by ship she was not sufficiently recovered to journey through the tropics. The proposed visit was cancelled two days before she was due to leave Italy and reported in Australian newspapers in March 1938.