ABSTRACT
This work is born out of the
accidental finding, in a repository of the ancient “Oliveriana Library” in the
city of Pesaro (Italy), of a small mahogany box containing three specimens of a
submarine telegraph cable built for the Italian government by the Henley
Company of London. This cable was used to connect, by means of the telegraph,
in 1864, the Ports of Otranto and Avlona (today Valona, Albania). As a scientific relic, the
Oliveriana memento perfectly fits in the scene of that rich chapter of the
history of long distance electrical communications known as submarine
telegraphy. It is known that, thanks to the English, the issue of submarine
electric communication had an impressive development in Europe from the second
half of the nineteenth century on. Less known is the fact that, in
this emerging technology field, Italy before unification was able to carve out
a non-negligible role for itself, although primarily political. Particularly,
two states took advantage of that: the House of Savoia in Piedmont and Sardinia
and the House of Bourbon in Sicily and Puglia. Not having at the time, the
means, the know-how and the money, but being aware of the strategic role of their own
territories, the two dynamic Italian States were able to skilfully stipulate
numerous agreements to lay out some underwater sections. The pacts were made
mostly with France and England which had strong and driving needs to keep in
contact, through the telegraph, with their colonial possessions. The House of Savoia was the first to use the
new technology. Thanks to an agreement with France, in 1854 they began to lay
out a submarine telegraph cable along the stretch connecting La Spezia to
Corsica. After that, many more cables were laid with the active participation,
besides the Sardinian States, also of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. This
work will consider mainly the decade of 1854-1864, a period when the
submarine telegraphy business began
and developed in Italy.