This is an accepted version of this page Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (UK: /ˈvɒltə/, US: /ˈvoʊltə/; Italian: [alesˈsandro ˈvɔlta]; 18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian chemist and physicist who was a pioneer of electricity and power,[1][2][3] and is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane.

He invented the voltaic pile in 1799, and reported the results of his experiments in a two-part letter to the president of the Royal Society,[4][5] which was published in 1800.

[7] Volta held the chair of experimental physics at the University of Pavia for nearly 40 years and was widely idolised by his students.

[8] In 1794, Volta married an aristocratic lady also from Como, Teresa Peregrini, with whom he raised three sons: Zanino, Flaminio, and Luigi.

His promotion of it was so extensive that he is often credited with its invention, even though a machine operating on the same principle was described in 1762 by the Swedish experimenter Johan Wilcke.

He researched and discovered methane after reading a paper by Benjamin Franklin of the United States on "flammable air".

[15][16] Luigi Galvani, an Italian physicist, discovered something he named "animal electricity" when two different metals were connected in series with a frog's leg and to one another.

[17] He 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.

In announcing his discovery of the voltaic pile, Volta paid tribute to the influences of William Nicholson, Tiberius Cavallo, and Abraham Bennet.

The chemical reactions in this voltaic cell are as follows: Copper metal does not react, but rather it functions as a catalyst for the hydrogen-gas formation and an electrode for the electric current.

[23] Nearby stands the Villa Olmo, which houses the Voltian Foundation, an organization promoting scientific activities.

The electric eel species Electrophorus voltai, described in 2019 as the strongest bioelectricity producer in nature, was named after Volta.

I have, indeed, and only too often, failed in the performance of those good works which are the mark of a Catholic Christian, and I have been guilty of many sins: but through the special mercy of God I have never, as far as I know, wavered in my faith...

In this faith I recognise a pure gift of God, a supernatural grace; but I have not neglected those human means which confirm belief, and overthrow the doubts which at times arise.

I studied attentively the grounds and basis of religion, the works of apologists and assailants, the reasons for and against, and I can say that the result of such study is to clothe religion with such a degree of probability, even for the merely natural reason, that every spirit unperverted by sin and passion, every naturally noble spirit must love and accept it.