Volta's Como

Alessandro Volta was born, lived and died in Como, where monuments from different periods recall him: the tomb at Camnago, which his widow and sons had built in 1831; the statue in Piazza Volta, put up by the town in 1838; the lighthouse of 1927, the centenary of his death, and the Tempio Voltiano, inaugurated in 1928; and Daniel Libeskind's Life Electric, from 2015. The luoghi voltiani, the Volta sites, in town all fit into a morning on foot, from the walled town to the lakefront; the tomb and the lighthouse, outside the centre, take another half day.

1. 01In Piazza Volta, Pompeo Marchesi's statue of 1838. At Via Volta 62, the house where he was born on 18 February 1745 and died on 5 March 1827; in the church of San Donnino, on Via Diaz, he was baptised and his funeral was held, as a plaque records.
2. 02On Via Cesare Cantù, the classical lyceum named after him: in his day it was the Royal Gymnasium, and Volta was its regent and physics teacher from 1774 to 1778.
3. 03In the walls, the Torre Gattoni, where Volta carried out his experiments.
4. 04On the lakefront, the Istituto Carducci, where in 1927 a congress of physicists met, twelve Nobel laureates among them, and the Tempio Voltiano, with original instruments and reconstructions.
5. 05At the tip of the breakwater, Life Electric, Libeskind's steel sculpture.
6. 06Outside the centre, the scientist's tomb stands on the hill of Camnago Volta; above Brunate is the Faro Voltiano of 1927.

WhereComo · Brunate