Antique Ducati Family Photo Book, dated 1926

This is easily Ducati.net's rarest treasure. Found in the USA, this is the earliest piece known to exist on the Ducati historic map, it predates "the first order" which secured Ducati's future as a company by 3 weeks. I'd like to include in this gallery a bit of Ducati family history, mainly because it's really interesting and also because the ironly of who Adriano Cavalieri Ducati was, what he personally achieved and what he ultimately is remembered for, will, I am certain, surprise you. More on that later.
Ducati, the company began on July 4th, 1926 as Scientific Society Radio Brevetti Ducati SpA, from funds provided by Antonio Cavalieri Ducati (the father) obtained in a property sale in Florence, Italy. He did this because he wanted to build a company around his brilliant son, who had already come to the attention of the world (and the Italian govt) by using home made radio equipment to send the first bilateral radio wave between Italy and America, making it possible for the first time for an Italian military ship to keep in touch with 5 continents at once. For this accomplishment Adriano (known here after in this story as ACD) was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Crown of Italy. The discovery was exceptional because while Marconi had been the first to discover the radio wave, his required 2000 watts. ACD did it with 90 watts. He was 20 years old.

The first offices were 3 rented rooms. The "factory" was in the basement of their home. The objective of the company was to exploit the patent worthy inventions of ACD, of which there were many (he eventually held over 200 patents). The first "product" was called a manens capacitor, a small item that they shipped samples of all over the world with the goal to be noticed by foreign companies. ACD also took that goal on the road, in 1926 he visited Argentina and the United States, and that is where this story begins....
Words and photos by Vicki Smith