Elio Martinelli was born on 19 November 1922. After spending his childhood and adolescence in Lucca with the friends who would eventually become his lifelong friends, he pursued set design studies in Florence, where he eventually graduated. 
He started working with a Lucca-based company to create interiors for public spaces. He started designing and making his own lamps for his projects because he was dissatisfied with the types of lighting fixtures that were readily accessible at the time (it was just after World War II). In a basement in Piazza Bernardini in Lucca, which was only accessible by a trapdoor and a stairway, and where the few tools required for a tiny production were installed with difficulty, Martinelli Luce was created. Elio referred to it as a 'laboratory'. Many of his concepts were formed in this place.
Elio Martinelli created a lot of lights during his career and learned new methods for molding methacrylate to create some of them. The most iconic lights of his manufacture were created specifically in plastic during the 1960s, a time when inventive and ground-breaking plastic materials first began to appear.
Attention to technology and novelty has always characterised Elio Martinelli's interest, not only in the materials in which the lamps were made, but also in the use of new light sources.Elio Martinelli passed away on 21 October 2004.