Le Opere di Alessandro Volta

T WO CENTURIES AGO, on 20 March 1800,

Alessandro Volta, a professor at the University of
Pavia and Fellow of the Royal Society of London, sent a
letter from Come, his native town, to Sir Joseph Banks,
President of the Royal Society, announcing the inven-
tion of a device capable of producing electricity ‘by
the mere contact of conducting substances of different
species’1.This device, the ‘Voltaic battery’,marked the

birth of a new era in the development of modern

physics and important changes in our lifestyle.