Alessandro Volta

Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was born in Como on 18 February 1745. In 1799 he invented the voltaic pile and reported his results in a two-part letter to the Royal Society in London the following year, debunking the prevailing belief that only living beings could generate electricity. The invention drew Napoleon's admiration; Volta was summoned to Paris to demonstrate the device at the Institute of France, and the emperor conferred numerous honours on him throughout his life. He held the chair of experimental physics at the University of Pavia for nearly four decades, idolized by students, though in later years he withdrew toward domestic seclusion. A series of illnesses that began in 1823 led to his death on 5 March 1827.