Читать книгу Marconi My Beloved - Maria C. Marconi - Страница 7

On 20^th July, 1962, the 25^th anniversary of my beloved Guglielmo’s death, my daughter Elettra and I attended a solemn commemorative Holy Mass in the Cathedral of San Pietro in Bologna, celebrated by Cardinal Giacomo Lercaro the Archbishop of the city in the presence of many dignitaries and a crowd of citizens of Bologna. I was deeply moved and Elettra and I felt very close to our dearest Guglielmo.

Whenever Guglielmo and I went into the cathedral he always wanted to stand with me for a moment or two in front of the font. As I looked at it that day I remembered the words my husband had said to me with a pensive smile on his face: “Look! That is where I was baptised when I was a newborn baby”. Although his father Giuseppe Marconi was a Catholic, Guglielmo had been brought up in the Anglican faith by his mother Annie Jameson Marconi who belonged to the Anglican High Church which in the Church of England is the nearest to the Catholic faith.

While Elettra and I were deep in prayer, each one immersed in her own memories, I saw the whole of my life with Guglielmo in my mind’s eye with a clarity which made everything seem vivid and alive. I remembered his face, his smile, our first meeting, his honest proud character and all those qualities which made us understand each other perfectly right from the start. I thought of the faith that by God’s grace I helped to light and keep burning more and more brightly in his soul which was already so full of God-given greatness and goodness. Finally my mind went back with love and tenderness to our wedding day.

My first meeting with Guglielmo Marconi, by which time he was already free from his first marriage, took place in 1925 during a party on board his yacht the Elettra which was anchored at Viareggio. I was with some friends from Florence and Rome, among whom was the Duchess Ravaschieri and her daughter Ornella. I was introduced to Marconi who looked at me with interest and gave me a particularly charming smile. As for myself I was immediately fascinated by his great personality and charm and his rather English elegance. I was struck by his aura of genius and I realized that here was an exceptional man. The look in his eyes told me that the first spark of the great love which would eventually unite us for the rest of our lives had already been lit. I was wearing a long red velvet evening dress with a red rose pinned to one shoulder. What a wonderful evening it was.

Not long afterwards Guglielmo and I met again in Rome. I was a close friend of Maria Cristina del Drago, who gave afternoon parties in her palace in Via Quattro Fontane. Her mother Princess Elika was a very charming woman who always invited a select group of friends to those events; the atmosphere was always pleasant and the conversation amusing. After her death her son and daughter Rodolfo and Maria Cristina kept up their mother’s custom and entertained in the same style.

Guglielmo Marconi was made a Senator of the Kingdom of Italy when he was just forty years old, the minimum age allowed by the law. He came to Rome from time to time in order to fulfill his duties at the Italian Senate and he used to stay for two or three days at the Grand Hotel. He was always glad of the opportunity to visit his friends Prince and Princess del Drago and it was in the pleasant atmosphere of one of their parties that I met Guglielmo again. During the afternoon I realised that his gaze was fixed upon me and this made me very happy. I was struck at once by the look in his eyes: it was penetrating, compelling and yet full of humanity and feeling. He possessed a mysterious force of attraction which drew people to him and a marvelous sense of humour; everyone enjoyed his company. There was a kind of electric current between us right from the beginning and we understood each other perfectly. As time went by we fell deeply in love and we knew that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. Guglielmo often said to me that apart from his mother I was the only person who understood him and he felt truly happy only when he was with me. It was no sacrifice for me to dedicate myself to him completely and I did my best to help him as much as I could. I wanted to transmit my own joie de vivre to him.

Guglielmo loved beauty: everything that was beautiful in nature, in man, and in art; he admired the works of such geniuses as Dante, Michangelo, Raffaello, Galileo, Shakespeare and Verdi. When we were in Rome his favourite walks were in the gardens of Villa Borghese, the Pincio and the Gianicolo where he enjoyed looking at the view of the eternal city below us. We went to see Tasso’s oak-tree in remembrance of the great poet. Although he was a very great scientist, Guglielmo was also very romantic. We had the same tastes and the same kind of character. We felt a profound affinity which kept us close and made our happiness complete. No disagreement ever cast a shadow over our marriage and we lived in perfect harmony until the end of his life. I was always at his side, supporting him when he was worried and comforting him with my love when things went wrong. We faced every problem calmly and sensibly; this attitude was innate in both of us because we had been brought up like this by our parents and to this day I am grateful to them for the moral strength they instilled in us.

Guglielmo had an exceptional personality. He understood me and this is why we were so happy together. His love and gratitude were my reward for all my care. Above all he trusted me completely; he always wanted to know what I thought and listened to my opinions. He was a man with a thousand interests and with his sense of humour he usually found something to make him laugh. He was curious about everything that went on around him and took an interest in all the important events of the day. His comments on every topic were always kind. In fact he wanted everything to turn out for the best and he thought that every question should be considered from an optimistic point of view. He dealt with every difficulty at once as he did not think there was any point in waiting. “Never put things off”, he always said. Guglielmo had many exceptional qualities that I did not find in other men and his sensitivity and intuition made him understand me at once.

I have many letters that Guglielmo wrote to me from London and elsewhere, before and during our engagement, which show his renewed interest in the Catholic faith. They are profound and interesting. Each of them reflects his nobility of mind and his exceptional human and spiritual values. I always remember a phrase in a letter he wrote to me from London on Christmas Eve, 1926. “...Dear Cristina, whatever happens, you have been the Angel of my conversion, of my redemption, an Angel like the one that stopped St. Paul on the road to Damascus, (...)”. When we were married he did not write so often because we were always together and he could tell me his thoughts and feelings personally. To have found someone in whom he could confide and whom he could trust completely was essential to him. I have about two hundred of his letters. They show a youthful spontaneous spirit and intense emotion which he himself was surprised by and which filled him with joy and optimism about his life and work. As for me I felt very proud to be the source of this happiness that he longed for and deserved so much.

Guglielmo wanted to make a thorough study of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Apostolic Church and he found in my sweetness and my ideals the wisdom, serenity and faith in God which he had missed up until then. “I feel like a ship that has found a safe harbour”, he said to me one day. I spoke to him about my faith openly and lovingly; I advised him to study the New Testament together with the commentaries of great scholars. I also gave him the famous ascetic book “The Imitation of Christ” which he found particularly interesting. We often read religious works together. Guglielmo was very interested in the texts of St. Paul and St. Augustine whose works and ideas he admired.

The Sacrament of Confirmation was administered by a Bishop in my family’s palace in Via Condotti in Rome, where I was born and where I lived with my parents. My father Count Francesco Bezzi Scali stood godfather to Guglielmo. I was present with my mother Anna Sacchetti the daughter of Marquis Urbano Sacchetti and of Princess Beatrice Orsini. Guglielmo was deeply moved because he knew the importance of the decision he was about to take. I had the joy of knowing that Guglielmo now shared my great faith which was to give us strength for the rest of our lives. After our marriage, he liked to conclude his scientific conferences on his experiments and inventions by stressing that everything he had succeeded in doing with his discoveries had been a gift from God. I helped him to have a wide religious culture which he assimilated quickly and with great interest. He often met my spiritual counsellor, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli, who had a great respect for him. He knew that Guglielmo’s conversion was genuine and that he truly loved me.

During our engagement I introduced Guglielmo to Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, Secretary of State to His Holiness the Pope. On 11th February, 1929 he and Mussolini who was then the Italian Prime Minister signed the Concordat, thus putting an end to the contention between the Italian State and the Church which had been going on since 1870. I kept the correspondence between the Cardinal and my husband and I presented Pope John Paul II with a letter which Guglielmo sent to Cardinal Gasparri, written on board his yacht; engraved on the writing-paper are the flag of the Royal Yacht Squadron and the name, “Elettra”. It is now kept in the Vatican Museums.

On his return to the practice of the Catholic faith Marconi asked the Sacra Rota (the ecclesiastic high court) to annul his marriage since his first wife had already remarried. After carefully examining his matrimonial situation the Sacra Rota granted his request and at the beginning of 1927 Guglielmo’s first marriage was declared null. The statement of reasons in the judgment, expressly provided for by the code of canon law, was of “invalid consent” (that is that the parties even before they were married had declared themselves ready to separate in the event of the marriage vows being broken). This statement of reasons was proved conclusively by the unanimous declarations made by the witnesses before the ecclesiastic high court and these statements in fact rendered the marriage null.

This made it possible for us to be married in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome on 15th June 1927. It was a solemn occasion and the marriage was blessed by our great friend Cardinal Evaristo Lucidi since Cardinal Pacelli was in Berlin because of his diplomatic commitments as Apostolic Nuncio. Guglielmo’s witnesses were Prince Clemente del Drago and Prince Ludovico Spada Potenziani while my witnesses were my uncles Prince Domenico Orsini and the Marquis Guglielmo Guglielmi d’Antognolla. All our friends and relatives and a crowd of Roman citizens were present and when we came out of the church they showered us with flower petals. After the wedding there was a very elegant and intimate luncheon at my parents’ house in Via Condotti with our witnesses, relatives and closest friends.

My wedding-dress was of white satin with a long train, made by the well-known dressmaker Ventura and designed by Madame Anna. I wore a diamond tiara and an antique Irish lace veil which had belonged to Guglielmo’s mother on my head. One thing which still touches me is that the tiara was designed for me personally by Guglielmo as he did not think that any of the ones he had seen in the various jewellers in London were beautiful enough for me. (See letter dated 14 May 1927)

Since the matrimonial concordat between the Italian State and the Holy See was not yet in force in 1927, the civil ceremony had taken place two days before in the Capitol. This was followed by a formal reception at my parents’ house with all our relatives, including Guglielmo’s brother Alfonso who had come from London for the occasion and many of our friends from the Roman aristocracy, the Vatican and other personalities, including the ambassadors of various countries who admired Guglielmo very much.