Statua di Alessandro Volta

In the middle of the square that bears his name, Como's marble Volta stands with head inclined, one hand resting on his invention. Inaugurated in 1838 and carved by Pompeo Marchesi, one of the most celebrated sculptors of his day, it raised the city's tribute to the inventor of the electric battery in marble — inscribed simply: A Volta, La Patria.

Why it matters

Alessandro Volta (1745-1827) gave the world the electric battery and gave his city a claim on the history of science, and this statue is where that claim became public and permanent. Unveiled in 1838 on the square that today bears his name, it predates by decades the grandiose Tempio Voltiano on the lakefront and remains the most intimate of Como's Volta monuments — not a museum, not a temple, but a figure in the daily flow of the city. The base carries the plain dedication that says everything about the relationship between Como and its greatest citizen. The statue anchors a square framed by elegant porticoes and historic buildings.

What to notice

Volta's head is slightly bowed, as if observing the passers-by, an unusually personal attitude for a public monument of its era, and his right hand rests on the pile, the battery that made him famous — a gesture the Fondazione Alessandro Volta describes as drawing energy from his own invention. The marble figure is the work of Pompeo Marchesi, a sculptor of the first rank in Lombardy of the period, while the massive pedestal was designed by the architect Francesco Durelli. The inscription reads: A Volta — La Patria. The statue is part of Como's wider commemoration of Volta, alongside the Tempio Voltiano and the family tomb at Camnago. The monument has also been illuminated through a local foundation initiative.

Context and history

The monument belongs to the generation of civic tributes that followed Volta's death in 1827. Como chose a leading sculptor, Pompeo Marchesi, and a prominent architect, Francesco Durelli, for the pedestal, signalling the city's ambition to honour its own on the scale of national monuments. The unveiling in 1838 took place on the square that took the name Piazza Volta in the scientist's honour. The statue thus became the founding piece of the city's Volta topography: the square, later the Tempio Voltiano museum on the shore (opened 1927), and the family tomb at Camnago Volta where the scientist is buried. The Fondazione Alessandro Volta, which keeps his memory active, financed a new illumination of the monument, inaugurated on 5 March, the anniversary of Volta's death.