Antonio Pacinotti

Antonio Pacinotti (17 June 1841 – 24 March 1912) was an Italian physicist, who was Professor of Physics at the University of Pisa.

He was a student of Carlo Matteucci and graduated in mathematics at Pisa under Riccardo Felici.

He was appointed as assistant to the astronomer Giovanni Battista Donati in 1862, professor at the technological institute of Bologna in 1864, professor of physics at the University of Cagliari in 1873, and, finally, successor to his father in 1881 in the chair of technological physics at the University of Pisa.

He is best known for inventing an improved form of direct-current electrical generator, or dynamo, which he built in 1860 and described in a paper published in Il Nuovo Cimento of 1865.

It used a ring armature around which was wrapped a coil of wire, to produce a smoother current than that available from previous types of dynamo.