In the collective imagination, the invention of mobile phones is tied to the booming consumer culture of the 1980s. But long before the Motorola DynaTAC or the first brick-sized handsets made headlines, an Italian engineer had already envisioned – and built – the first portable phone.

In the mid-1930s, Domenico Mastini developed what can rightly be considered the prototype of the modern mobile phone. His invention, produced by the Fimi-Phonola factory in Saronno, allowed users to place calls from a moving vehicle to any number on the urban telephone network, something truly revolutionary for the era.