Degna Marconi was born in 1908 in London, the first child of Guglielmo Marconi and Beatrice O'Brien. She spent her childhood in England and Italy following her parents' wanderings from one country to the other. In 1938, she married the Italian diplomat, university professor and soldier Gabriele Paresce, who was then stationed at the Italian embassy in London. The couple's only son, Francesco, the present chairman of the Marconi International Fellowship Foundation, was born in London in 1940.

The family spent the war years in Rome, and from 1949 to 1958 in Washington, D.C. where Gabriele Paresce was posted to the Italian Embassy. She followed her husband to his last posting in Seoul, Korea as Italian ambassador there from 1960 to 1965. Degna Marconi Paresce lived in Rome and, finally, London until her death in 1998.

Degna wrote the definitive personal biography of Guglielmo Marconi called My Father, Marconi published by McGraw-Hill in 1962 in several editions and translated in many languages. It is now available in paperback form in English published by Guernica editions and in Italian published by Frassinelli.

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