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Top 10 Interesting Facts about Alessandro Volta

Alessandro Guiseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta was born on February 18, 1745. He was an Italian physicist and chemist who was a pioneer of electricity and power. Alessandro is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane. He is known for inventing the voltaic pile in 1799 and reported the results of his experiments in 1800 in a two-part letter to the president of the Royal Society.

Through this invention, Alessandro was able to prove that electricity could be generated chemically. He was also able to debunk the prevalent theory that electricity was generated solely by living beings.

His invention sparked a great amount of scientific excitement and led others to conduct similar experiments that eventually led to the development of the field of electrochemistry. 

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1. His Life Before Recognition

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Alessandro’s father was Filippo Volta and was from a noble lineage as his mother, Donna Maddalena, came from the family of the Inzaghis. Alessandro married an aristocratic lady who was from his birth town, Como. Her name was Teresa Peregrini, and together they raised three sons Zanino, Flamino, and Luigi.  Alessandro is noted for being a person inclined towards domestic life and this was more apparent in his later years.

In 1774, Alessandro became a professor of physics at the Royal School in Como. Later in 1775, he improved and popularised the electrophorus, which is a device that produced static electricity, his promotion of the device was so extensive that he was often credited with its invention.

2. Alessandro’s Works

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Between 1776 and 1778, he studied the chemistry of gases. Alessandro took his time to research and discover methane after he read a paper on Flammable air by Benjamin Franklin of the United States. Alessandro found methane in the marshes of Angera on Lake Maggiore in November 1776, by 1778, he had managed to isolate methane. 

Alessandro devised experiments such as the ignition of methane by an electric spark in a closed vessel. He also studied what is now called electrical capacitance, developing means to study both electrical potential difference and charge, and discovering that for a given object, they are proportional. It is called Volta’s Law of Capacitance and for this work, the unit of electrical potential has been named the volt.

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4. The Praise and Recognition He Gained

Through his invention, Alessandro drew admiration from Napoleon Bonaparte and was invited to the Institute of France in order for him to demonstrate his invention to the members of the institute. He enjoyed a certain amount of closeness with the emperor throughout his life and he was conferred numerous honors by him.

For nearly 40 years, Alessandro held the chair of experimental physics at the University of Parvia. Throughout these years, he was widely idolized by his students. Volta is known for having the SI unit of electric potential and was named in his honor as the volt.

Later, he was honored by the emperor who granted Alessandro substantial funding to equip the physics cabinet with instruments that were purchased by Alessandro in England and France. At the University History Museum of the University of Pavia, there are 150 of them which were used by Alessandro Volta.

5. Alessandro’s Inspiration 

Through Luigi, Alessandro realized that a frog’s leg served as both a conductor of electricity and a detector of electricity. Luigi Galvani was an Italian physicist who discovered animal electricity which is when two different metals are connected in series with a frog’s leg and to one another. Alessandro understood that the frog’s legs were irrelevant to the electric current that was caused by the two differing metals.

Alessandro later replaced the frog’s leg with brine-soaked paper and detected the flow of electricity by other means familiar to him from his previous studies. Through this technique, he discovered the electrochemical series and the law of the electromotive force of a galvanic cell, which consists of a pair of metal electrodes that are separated by an electrolyte. This may be called Volta’s Law of the electrochemical series.

6. His 1800 Invention

As a result, of a professional disagreement over the galvanic response advocated by Galvani. Alessandro invented the voltaic pile, an early electric battery which is produced a steady electric current. Alessandro had determined that the most effective pair of dissimilar metals to produce electricity was zinc and copper. 

Initially, Alessandro experimented with individual cells in series, each cell being a wine goblet filled with brine into which two dissimilar electrodes were dipped. The voltaic pile replaced the goblets with cardboard soaked in brine.

7. The Volta Battery

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After Alessandro announced the discovery of the voltaic pile, he paid tribute to the influences of William Nicholson, Tiberius Cavallo, and Abraham Bennet. He later went on to make a battery that is still credited as one of the first electrochemical cells. It consists of two electrodes, one made of zinc, and the other of copper. The electrolyte is either sulfuric acid mixed with water or a form of saltwater brine. 

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8. His Retirement Days

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Before Alessandro retired, he became an associated member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands. In honor of his work, Alessandro was made a count by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1810. Alessandro retired in 1819 to his estate in Camnago, a frazione of Como, Italy which is now known as Camnago Volta in his honor. 

Alessandro rested in peace on March 5, 1827, this was following a series of illnesses, which was just after his 82nd birthday. His remains were buried in Camnago Volta.

9. The Legacy He Left Behind

Alessandro’s legacy is celebrated by the Tempio Voltiano memorial located in the public gardens by the lake. There is also a museum that has been built in his honor which exhibits some of the equipment that Alessandro used to conduct experiments. The Villa Olmo houses the Voltian Foundation which is an organization that promotes scientific activities. Alessandro carried out his experimental studies and produced his first inventions near Como.

In the Old Campus of the University of Pavia, there is a classroom named Aula Volta which was commissioned by Emperor Joseph II to Leopoldo Pollack in 1787 for the lectures of Alessandro Volta. In the University History Museum, there are many scientific instruments that belonged to Alessandro and his charge together with his blackboard.

10. Alessandro’s Religious Beliefs 

Alessandro was raised as a Catholic and for all of his life continued to maintain his belief. Due to the fact that he was not ordained a clergyman his family expected, Alessandro was sometimes accused of being irreligious and some people have speculated about his possible unbelief. Many people believed that because he didn’t attend church and ignored the church’s call he was not giving the church the time it deserves. Thus proving the fact he might be irreligious.

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