Caselli was born in the town of
Siena, Italy on 25 April 1815. As a child, he was tutored in
Florence by Italian physicist
Leopoldo Nobili. These studies involved
electrochemistry,
electromagnetism, electricity and
magnetism. He became a priest in 1836. Caselli became a student at the
University of Florence and studied literature, history, science, and religion. He lived in
Parma from 1841 to 1848 and was a teacher for the sons of the
Marquis of the
basilica of San Vitale. He participated in the
insurrection of 1848 for the takeover of
Duchy of Parma to be part of
Piedmont, and was expelled from the area for his actions during this
political violence. He returned to Florence where he became a professor in physics at the University of Florence in 1849. In 1851, he founded the technical journal
La Ricreazione that explained physics, written in
layman's terms, to the public. He studied electricity and magnetism, and he created the
pantelegraph between 1855 and 1861, which was the precursor of the fax machine.
Pantelegraph , Milan. , Milan.
Pantèlègraph is a
portmanteau from pantograph, an instrument that copies handwritten words and sketches, plus "telegraph", an electrical system that sends messages through a normal wire over long distances and that can be mechanically synced. When he was teaching at the University of Florence, Caselli devoted much of his research to the technology of telegraphic transmission of sketches as well as handwritten words. Inventor
Alexander Bain was working on this technology with his
facsimile machine, as was physicist
Frederick Bakewell. The major problem of the time was to get perfect synchronization between the transmitting and receiving parts so they would work together correctly. Caselli developed an electrochemical technology with a "synchronizing apparatus" (regulating clock) to make the sending and receiving mechanisms work together that was far superior to any technology Bain or Bakewell had. Caselli made a prototype of his system by 1856 and presented it to
Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, in a demonstration that used telegraph lines. The Duke was so impressed with Caselli's device that the duke financed Caselli's experiments. When the Duke's enthusiasm waned, Caselli moved to Paris to introduce his invention to
Napoleon III. Napoleon immediately became an enthusiastic admirer of the technology. Caselli perfected his pantelegraph (also known as the autotelegraph) between 1857 and 1861 in Paris under the leadership of French inventor and engineer
Paul-Gustave Froment. The world's first practical operating facsimile machine ("fax") system put into use was by Caselli and utilized a scanning technology Froment devised. In 1858 Caselli's improved version was demonstrated by French physicist
Alexandre-Edmond Becquerel at the
French Academy of Sciences in Paris. Napoleon saw 1860 a demonstration given of Caselli's pantelegraph and then put in an order for the operation of it within the French telegraph network that started about a year later in the country. Caselli had access to not only the French telegraph lines for his pantelegraph facsimile machine technology, but finances were provided by Napoleon. A test was done successfully then between Paris and
Amiens with the signature of composer
Gioacchino Rossini as the image sent, and it was received away recognizable. Caselli did testing in 1863 between Paris and
Marseille, a distance of , which turned out to be successful. French law was enacted in 1864 for it to be officially used on the French telegraph network that was normally used just for telegraph messages. In 1865, operations commenced on a Paris to Lyon line, and this line was extended to Marseille in 1867. Although rudimentary, Caselli had invented the first commercial fax system and the birth of the fax cover sheet. The mid-nineteenth century pantelegraph took about two minutes to transmit a sheet of paper by with 25 handwritten words on it. The early twentieth century modern fax machine took about one minute to transmit a sheet of paper by with 250 handwritten words on it. File:PantelegraphCaselli01.png|Caselli's pantelegraph patented in 1861 File:Pantelegraph tinfoil mechanism.jpg|Pantelegraph "reading" tinfoil mechanism File:Pantelegraph image 10 Feb 1862.jpg|Pantelegraph image, Paris to Lyons on 10 Feb 1862 File:Caselli pantelegraph image.jpg|Caselli pantelegraph images were blue ink == Later life and legacy ==