Front: Maria Montessori (1870-1952), educational reformer

Maria Montessori was born in Chiaravalle, Italy. She decided to study medicine at a time when it was considered impossible for a woman to be accepted into a medical school. She enrolled at the University of Rome. Since they did not admit women into the medical program, she decided instead to study physics, mathematics and natural sciences. In 1892, she passed her exams and received a Diploma di licenza that made her eligible to study medicine. The problem of course was she was a woman. Somehow she persisted and was finally accepted into the medical school. In 1896 she was granted the degree of doctor of medicine, making her the first woman to graduate from medical school in Italy.

Maria joined the staff at the University of Rome as a voluntary assistant in 1897. One of her responsibilities was to visit asylums for the insane. Here she came across feebleminded children, unable to function in schools. She saw that they were starving for experience and started to think about what she could do to help out. So in 1901 she returned to the University with a desire to study the mind instead of the body. In 1906 she started working with sixty young children. This was where she developed all of her educational methods, which became so successful that even learning disabled children began to pass examinations for normal children.

Back: Teacher and student

Front: Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), inventor of radio

Guglielmo Marconi was born in Bologna, Italy. Even as a boy he was interested in physical and electrical science. In 1895 he began laboratory experiments at his father's country estate at Pontecchio where he succeeded in sending wireless signals over a distance of one and a half miles.

In 1896 Marconi took his apparatus to England and was granted the world's first patent for a system of wireless telegraphy. He formed The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company Limited in 1897, later renamed Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company Limited.

Back: Radio towers, Marconi's yacht Eletta, and early radio set

Italy, a 700 miles long peninsula extending into the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, was divided into a number of independent states since the fall of Roman Empire until modern times. It was unified with the creation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1860-1946. Became a republic in 1946. For a more detailed country profile, see CIA World Factbook on Italy.

Beginning on January 1, 2002 Euro becomes the official currency for Italy.