GALVANI, LUIGI. — Born in Bologna on 9 September 1737; died there on 4 December 1798. In 1763 he was appointed to teach anatomy at the university in his native city. He discovered the physiological actions of electricity and, on this subject, engaged in a famous controversy with Alessandro Volta: this led Volta to the discovery of the pile and G. to the explanation of the physiological phenomena of electricity. He was deeply religious and became a Franciscan tertiary in 1779.
BIBL.: J. L. Alibert, Eloge de G., Paris 1816; Q. Majorana, Commemorazione di L. G., in Nuovo Cimento, 14 (1937); G. Baffino, Bilancio bibliografico del bicentenario di L. G., in Bibliografia, 40 (1938), p. 133 ff.