[4][5] Meucci set up a form of voice-communication link in his Staten Island, New York, home that connected the second-floor bedroom to his laboratory.

[9] In November 1821, at the age of 13, he was admitted to Florence Academy of Fine Arts as its youngest student, where he studied chemical and mechanical engineering.

[6] In May 1825, because of the celebrations for the childbirth of Marie Anna of Saxony, wife of Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Meucci conceived a powerful propellant mixture for flares.

[12] In 1850, the third renewal of Meucci's contract with Don Francisco Martí y Torrens expired, and his friendship with General Giuseppe Garibaldi made him a suspect citizen in Cuba.

Meucci invested the substantial capital he had earned in Cuba into a tallow candle factory (the first of its kind in the Americas) employing several Italian exiles.

[6] Some of Meucci's notes written in 1857 describe the basic principle of electromagnetic voice transmission or in other words, the telephone: Consiste in un diaframma vibrante e in un magnete elettrizzato da un filo a spirale che lo avvolge.

Queste alterazioni di corrente, trasmesse all'altro capo del filo, imprimono analoghe vibrazioni al diaframma ricevente e riproducono la parola.Translated: It consists of a vibrating diaphragm and a magnet electrified by a spiral wire that wraps around it.

These alterations of current, transmitted to the other end of the wire, create analogous vibrations of the receiving diaphragm and reproduce the word.Meucci devised an electromagnetic telephone as a way of connecting his second-floor bedroom to his basement laboratory, and thus being able to communicate with his wife.

[citation needed] In August 1870 Meucci reportedly was able to capture a transmission of articulated human voice at the distance of a mile by using a copper plate as a conductor, insulated by cotton.

While he was recovering from injuries that befell him in a boiler explosion aboard a Staten Island ferry, the Westfield, Meucci's financial and health state was so bad that his wife sold his drawings and devices to a second-hand dealer to raise money.

Each of these persons holds to his mouth an instrument analogous to a speaking trumpet, in which the word may easily be pronounced, and the sound concentrated upon the wire.

The entire system, comprising the electrical and sound conductor, insulated and furnished with a mouthpiece and ear pieces at each end, adapted to serve as specified.

[27][28] According to Bruce, Meucci's own testimony as presented by Schiavo demonstrates that the Italian inventor "did not understand the basic principles of the telephone, either before or several years after Bell patented it.

[29] In 1885, he became general manager of the Globe Telephone Company, which had "started an action attempting to involve the government in hindering U.S. Bell's monopoly.

[41][42][43] The Havana experiments were briefly mentioned in a letter by Meucci, published by Il Commercio di Genova of 1 December 1865 and by L'Eco d'Italia of 21 October 1865 (both existing today).

186,787 dated 30 January 1877) were no longer in effect, although the presiding judges agreed to continue the proceedings due to the case's importance as a "precedent".

With a change in administration and charges of conflict of interest (on both sides) arising from the original trial, the U.S. Attorney General dropped the lawsuit on 30 November 1897 leaving several issues undecided on the merits.

Author Tom Farley writes that: "Nearly every scholar agrees that Bell and Watson were the first to transmit intelligible speech by electrical means.

"[56] In 1834, Meucci constructed a kind of acoustic telephone as a way to communicate between the stage and control room at the theatre "Teatro della Pergola" in Florence.

Different from other pioneers of the telephone—such as Charles Bourseul, Philipp Reis, Innocenzo Manzetti, and others—he did not think about transmitting voice by using the principle of the telegraph key (in scientific jargon, the "make-and-break" method).

[citation needed] Meucci separated the two directions of transmission to eliminate the so-called "local effect"—using what we would call today a four-wire-circuit.

[dubious – discuss][citation needed] Aware that his device required a bigger band than a telegraph, he found some means to avoid the so-called "skin effect" through superficial treatment of the conductor or by acting on the material (copper instead of iron).

[dubious – discuss] [citation needed] In 1864, Meucci claimed to have made what he felt was his best device, using an iron diaphragm with optimized thickness and tightly clamped along its rim.

In August 1870, Meucci reportedly obtained transmission of articulate human voice at a mile distance by using as a conductor a copper wire insulated by cotton.

[citation needed] In his History of the Telephone, Herbert Newton Casson wrote: To bait the Bell Company became almost a national sport.

One of them claimed to have done wonders with an iron hoop and a file in 1867; a second had a marvellous table with glass legs; a third swore that he had made a telephone in 1860, but did not know what it was until he saw Bell's patent; and a fourth told a vivid story of having heard a bullfrog croak via a telegraph wire which was strung into a certain cellar in Racine, in 1851.

"[59][56] The resolution's sponsor described it as "a message that rings loud and clear recognizing the true inventor of the telephone, Antonio Meucci.

"[60] In 2002, some news articles reported that "the resolution said his 'telettrofono', demonstrated in New York in 1860, made him the inventor of the telephone in the place of Bell, who took out a patent 16 years later.

[64][41][65] The House of Commons of Canada responded ten days later by unanimously passing a parliamentary motion stating that Alexander Graham Bell was the inventor of the telephone.

Of extreme importance is research via the 1971 Ph.D. dissertation of Dr. Rosario Tosiello whose PhD advisor at Boston University was Robert V. Bruce the 1973 author of "Alexander Graham Bell and the Conquest of Solute."