S8 Ehge of Alexander Volta. 



The desire of appearing in the world as a scholar of Volta, con- 

 tributed in a great measure, for more than the third part of a 

 century, to the great success of the University of Tesin. 



The proverbiaiyar niente of the Italians, is strictly true with 

 regard to bodily exercise. They travel so little, that even in the 

 wealthiest families, we find a Roman whom the sublime erup- 

 tions of Vesuvius have never drawn from the cool shade of his 

 villa ; well educated Florentines to whom St Peter and the 

 Coliseum are known only by engravings ; and Milanese who 

 all their lifetime have believed on hearsay that there exists, at 

 a distance of some leagues, an immense city, and hundreds of 

 magnificent palaces built in the midst of the waves. Volta him- 

 self did not leave the banks of his native Lario, except for scien- 

 tific purposes. I do not believe that his excursions in Italy 

 ever extended to Rome or Naples. If, in 1780, we see him 

 crossing the Apennines on his way from Bologna to Florence, 

 it is with the hope of finding by the way, in the fires of pietra- 

 mala^ an opportunity of submitting to a decisive proof the ideas 

 he entertained regarding the origin of native inflammable gas. 

 If, in 1782, he visited, in company with the celebrated Scarpa, 

 the capitals of Germany, Holland, England, and France, it was 

 to form an acquaintance with Lichtenberg, Van-Marum, Priest- 

 ley, Laplace, and Lavoisier, and to enrich the cabinet of Pavia 

 with certain instruments, of which descriptions and figures could 

 convey only an imperfect idea. 



By the invitation of General Bonaparte, conqueror of Italy, 

 Volta returned to Paris in 1801. He there repeated his expe- 

 riments on electricity by contact, before a numerous commission 

 of the Institute. The First Consul assisted in person at the 

 meeting in which the commissioners rendered a detailed ac- 

 count of these remarkable phenomena. Their report was scarce- 

 ly ended, when he proposed to bestow on Volta a gold me- 

 dal, in testimony of the gratitude of the French savants. It was 

 contrary to custom, and the established rules of the Academy, to 

 accede to this proposal ; but rules are made for ordinary cir- 

 cumstances, and the professor of Pavia had placed himself be-, 

 yond these. The medal was therefore voted by acclamation ; 

 and as Bonaparte did nothing by halves, Volta received on the 

 same day, a sum of SOOO crowns to defray the expenses of his 



