Alexander Mariotti was trying to make it as a historian in Rome when he got a call from the US embassy, where he had given a lecture on ancient history. An official wondered if he might like to show some American tourists around. Intrigued by the secrecy over their names, he agreed.
“You can imagine how taken aback I was when I showed up and it was Bill Gates,” says Mariotti, who was only 25 at the time.
The billionaire Microsoft founder was more interested in Leonardo da Vinci than the ancients (he had once blown $30.8mn on one of the polymath’s notebooks) and less concerned with small talk than his then wife Melinda. “She was incredibly versed in history and afterwards she asked if I would mind if she gave my number out, and again I didn’t think anything of it,” Mariotti adds from his home in Rome.