Historical Corner

Giuseppe Pelosi
Dept. of Electronics and Telecommunications
University of Florence
Via di Santa Marta, 3
1-50139 Florence, Italy
Tel: +39055-4796-759
Fax: +39055-4797-767
E-mail: giuseppe.pelosi@unifi.it.g.pelosi@ieee.org

Introduction

This month, the Historical Comer has two papers. The first imperfect ground plane, which the Prussian scientist obtained in
discusses the work and life of Giovanni Caselli, who invented the 1909, a little more than 100 years ago. The authors of the second
facsimile (fax) machine. The second paper is on Sommerfeld's paper are myself and Prof. 1. L. Volakis, who does not need to be
solution of the problem of the radiation of a vertical dipole over a introduced to the readers of this Magazine.

"The Great Men in Telecommunications:"

Giovanni Caselli and the Invention of the
Pantelegraph or Fax

Giuseppe Pelosi

Department of Electronics and Telecommunications

University of Florence
Via S. Marta 3, Florence, Italy
E-mail: giuseppe.pelosi@unifi.it

Keywords: History; facsimile

1. Introduction is a mechanical device used to copy a drawing or an image) and

"telegraph" (a device sending electrical signals at a distance
through a wire) [I].

Ito Giovanni Caselli, within its series "Les Grandes Figures des
n December 1993, France Telecom dedicated a telephone card

Telecommunications" [The Great Men in Telecommunications]

(Figure I). In this series, you can also find a card dedicated to
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937), inventor of the radio; and
Samuel Finley Breese Morse (1791-1872), inventor of the tele­
graph.
This paper tells about Giovanni Caselli (Siena, May 25, 1815
- Florence, September 8, 1891), who might be less known than
Marconi and Morse, but who is a main figure in telecommunica­
tions. He can be considered to be the inventor of the first working
facsimile machine (fax) to be built. Caselli named his invention
pantelegrafo (pantelegraph) or telegrafo autografo (autograph tele­
graph) or telegrafo universale (universal telegraph). The name of
this machine derives from joining the words "pantograph" (which
2. Who was Giovanni Caselli?
Giovanni Caselli (Figure 2) was an Italian abbot and inven­
tor. Before joining the church, he studied physics in Florence with
the renowned physicist Leopoldo Nobili [2], who taught in Flor­
ence from 1831 to 1835. From 1841 to 1849, Caselli lived in
Modena, working as a private teacher. This allowed him to save
the money he used later in developing his invention. Back in Flor­
ence, he continued the study of physics, with particular attention to
electricity. From these studies, he started the development of the
pantelegraph. Actually, what he built was a forerunner of the fax.
He started working on the project in 1855 (Figures 3 and 4). Later
on, he moved to Paris, where he continued the development.

194 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 52, No.3, June 2010
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Figure 3. The scientific appendix of the Monitore Toscano

newspaper, containing the news of the invention of the pantele­
graph by Giovanni Caselli (No. 126, 1856).

Thanks to the support of French Emperor Napoleon III, who

also awarded him the Legion d'honneur, he was granted access to
the whole French telegraph network for his experiments. His first
patent dates back to 1861. In 1865, the pantelegraph started service
between Paris and Lion. This came to an end in 1870, after the
defeat in Sedan. The 1865 Paris-Lion link was a public service,
with a fee of 20 cents for each square centimeter sent, plus a 10
cent tax.

The device raised the interest of many other nations. There

was a pantelegraph service built between London and Liverpool,
which never made it to the public due to the 1864 crisis. Russia,
Figure 2. The inventor of the pantelegraph (or fax), Giovanni too, was interested in the device, setting up a link between the
Caselli. Emperor's palaces in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. In 1863, even

IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 52, No.3, June 2010
195
China asked for a demonstration, which took place in Peking, but
did not lead to an installation.

The only specimen of a pantelegraph still in existence is kept

at the technical high school Gian Battista della Porta in Naples
(Figure 5). For the "A Century of Progress International Exposi­
tion," which was held in Chicago, Illinois, USA, in May 1933,
Guglielmo Marconi committed to the "Officine Galileo" (an
important Italian company producing optical and optoelectronic
instruments) in Florence a copy of Caselli pantelegraph. This is
now at the Museum of Science in Milan (see
http://www.museoscienza.org/).

Besides the pantelegraph, Giovanni Caselli invented many

other devices. Among these was a torpedo, which he never built
due to peacekeeping afterthoughts, and an idromagnetic rudder.

Figure 5. The last surviving specimen of the pantelegraph, kept

at the technical high school Gian Battista della Porta in Naples,
Italy (http://www.itgdellaporta.it/).

3. How did the Pantelegraph Work?

The name "pantelegraph" or "universal telegraph," used by

Giovanni Caselli for his invention, put an emphasis on the possibil­
ity of reproducing an identical copy of an original document.
Indeed, the system could be used by any culture, independently
from the alphabet used. It basically consisted of a pendulum, con­
trolled via electromagnets, which provided a regular, alternating,
linear movement to a nib. The nib moved along the lateral surface
of a cylinder, parallel to its axis; the cylinder was rotated step-by­
step when the nib reached one end. In this way, the system per­
formed a scanning of the cylinder's surface.

The explanation of the two electrical circuits at the basis of

the Caselli pantelegraph can be found in [4] and [5]. The first cir­
cuit passed through the nibs at the end of each pendulum, the
transmitting and the receiving nibs. The transmitting pendulum
oscillated over the message to be sent, written with ink over a tin
sheet of paper [the message was written in non-conductive ink on a

19. CtudJium-n in ' UI d�. i 0 8il�int r....mona... dr&li Inl oi.

Figure 4. (top) Caselli's pantelegraph: a drawing showing the
large pendulum that constituted the main part of the instru­
ment. (bottom) An example of a document reproduced by the
pantelegraph from an original containing Chinese text (from
(3)).
196
sheet of tin]. When the transmitting nib was over a non-written part
of the document, the tin sheet allowed closing the circuit. When
the nib was over the non-conducting ink, the circuit was opened.
On the receiver side, the receiving nib oscillated over a chemical
paper: a sheet of paper dipped in potassium ferrocyanide
( C6N6FeK4), a substance that is light yellow, but which turns to
[
ferric ferrocyanide ( Fe4 Fe ( CN )6 J3) - which is Prussian blue -
IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 52, No.3, June 2010
as an effect of a current. When the circuit was closed, the nib had a
negative polarity, and the chemical paper was unaltered. When the
circuit was opened, the receiving nib had a positive polarity, and
the chemical paper changed its color from white to blue.
The resolution was remarkably good, due to the thin nibs and
the accurate pendulum movements. Perfect synchronization
between pendulums was produced by the second circuit, which
was closed by the transmitting pendulum at the end of each oscilla­
tion. At the end of each oscillation, the cylinders holding the tin
paper at the transmitting side and the chemical paper at the receiv­
ing side were rotated by a given, small amount, allowing the line­
by-line scanning of the whole message.
4. Previous Experiments with Image
Transmission by Telegraph
To better understand the achievement of Giovanni Caselli,
let's consider two of his forerunners, who tried to realize an auto­
telegraphic machine before him.
4.1 The Electrochemical Telegraph by
Alexander Bain (1811-1877)
In 1843, Scotsman Alexander Bain managed to reproduce
some conventional graphic symbols by employing an
electrochemical paper. On May 27 of that year, he registered a pat­
ent for "upgrades in electric clocks and the idea of an
electrochemical telegraph." In his concept, the telegraph comprised
two pendulums for synchronization, with a metallic nib at the bot­
tom of each. The original message was to be a bas-relief on a
metallic plate, scanned by the transmitting nib. Electrical contact
was to happen on the higher part of the metallic plate. Current due
to the electrical contact was then responsible for changing the color
of the electrochemical paper at the receiver. Alexander Bain never
built a fully working prototype of his idea.
eM �LJ .'s RJ!CI�J.'."L Go TADLlt'T.
Figure 6. A detailed drawing of the receiving arm of the Caselli
pantelegraph.
IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 52, No.3, June 2010
Figure 7. A schematic of the Alexander Bain machine.
4.2 Frederick Bakewell Telegraph
(1800-1869)
In 1847, British physicist Frederick Bakewell patented his
own chemical telegraph. This device was presented at the Great
Exhibition of London (1851), and represented the first realization
of a telegraph able to send images. The Bakewell device used two
rotating synchronized cylinders in place of the two pendulums of
Alexander Bain's device. The original message was to be written
on a silver sheet with nonconductive ink, in a manner similar to
Caselli's device. Again, when the transmitting nib was over the
ink, no current could flow to the receiver, and no change in color
of the electrochemical paper happened. In this case, the image
reproduced was rather a negative with respect to Caselli's device,
since the electrochemical paper turned blue in areas corresponding
to areas not covered with ink on the original, and remained yellow
in areas corresponding to inked areas.
Frederick Bakewell's device was a failure for two reasons.
Synchronization between the cylinders was very critical, since it
was based on purely mechanical gears. However, there was also a
small delay between the opening of the transmitting circuit and the
disappearance of the current, which caused stripes of blue to over­
lap with the supposedly white areas on the receiving paper. These
stripes made the message very hard to read. This problem was not
present in Caselli's device, which reproduced a positive image.
5. References and Notes
1. The word "pantelegraph" comes from the Greek pantos or "all,"
tele or "far," and graphos or "to write."
2. Leopoldo Nobili (1784-1835) studied in the school of the mili­
tary engineer in Modena (Italy). He was an artillery officer, and
participated in Napoleon's campaign in Russia, where he gained
the Legion d'honneur. In 1825, he invented the astatic galvanome­
ter, a fundamental instrument in electromagnetic history. In 1826,
he realized the thermoelectric battery, together with Macedonio
Melloni. In 1832, he become Professor of Physics at the Real
Museum of Physics and Natural History of Florence. There, in
197
cooperation with Vincenzo Antinori (Director of the museum from
1829), he realized important experiments on electromagnetic
induction, which had recently been discovered by Faraday. The
dispute between Leopoldo Nobili and Michael Faraday was
famous (see the letter to M. Charles Gay-Lussac in Annales de
Chimie et Physique, 51, 1832, pp. 404-434).
3. L. Lucci and G. Pelosi, "Antonio Meucci, Giovanni Caselli,
Guglielmo Marconi a Firenze [Antonio Meucci, Giovanni Caselli,
Guglielmo Marconi in Florence]," in R. Fantacci (ed.),
Innovazione Tecnico Scientifica in Italia [Technical Scientific
Innovation in Italy], Florence, Firenze University Press, 2009, pp.
7-17 (http://www.fupress.com/scheda.asp?IDV=1927).
4. G. Pagni, II Telegrafo Universale del Prof Giovanni Caselli
[The Universal Telegraph of Professor Giovanni Caselli], Firenze­
Roma, Tipografia Fratelli Bencini, 1887.
5. A. De la Rive, Traite d'Electricite Theorique et Appliquee
[Treatise on Theoretical and Applied Electricity], Paris, 1858.

On the Centennial of Sommerfeld's

Solution to the Problem of Dipole Radiation
Over an Imperfectly Conducting Half Space

1 2
Giuseppe Pelosi and John L. Volakis
1
Dept of Electronics and Telecommunications
University of Florence
Via C. Lombroso 6/17,50137 Florence, Italy
E-mail: giuseppe.pelosi@unifi.it

2
ElectroScience Laboratory, Dept of Electrical and Computer Engineering
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH 43212 USA
E-mail: volakis@ece.osu.edu

Keywords: History; dipole antenna; antenna radiation patterns; sea; electromagnetic propagation in nonhomogeneous media

1. Preface at Gottingen, Germany, as an assistant to Prof. Felix Klein. This

was a time shortly after J. C. Maxwell (1831-1879) and H. Hertz
(1857-1894) had published their seminal works.
Some years ago, the authors of this Historical Corner paper
edited a special issue of Electromagnetics, intended to commemo­
With the strong support from Klein (whom Sommerfeld
rate the work of Sommerfeld on his half-plane diffraction paper [1,
would later call his mentor), Sommerfeld carried out his the­
2] published in 1896 (Figure I). This time, there is a second impor­
sis/dissertation on boundary-value problems. His publication of the
tant Sommerfeld centennial to celebrate. This Historical Corner
half-plane-diffraction-problem solution [3, 5], in 1896, was quickly
paper is intended to commemorate the work of Sommerfeld on the
recognized as an important contribution by contemporary research-
radiation of a dipole over an imperfectly conducting half space,
published in 1909 [4] (Figure 2). This problem remains among the
classic problems that can be used for validation of integral-equa­
tion codes.

In the next section, we present some biographical notes on

Sommerfeld. At the end of this note, Section 3 summarizes the
problem and its solution.

2. Biography
Figure 1. Diffraction of a plane wave by a perfectly conducting
Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld (see Figure 3 for a half plane, with an illustration of the five regions correspond­
photo) was born on December 5, 1868, in Konigsberg, Prussia ing to different solution-field expressions (reproduced from
(now Kaliningrad, Russia). He began his academic career in 1893 (3D·

198 IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine, Vol. 52, No.3, June 2010