Piazza Galvani

About this audio guide

This guide to Piazza Galvani in Bologna follows Luigi Galvani, an eighteenth-century physician and anatomy teacher, and an odd discovery he made while experimenting on dissected frogs around seventeen eighty: severed legs that twitched as though still alive. You'll hear how the finding sparked a running dispute with the physicist Alessandro Volta over whether the electricity came from inside the animal or from the metals touching it. Best heard standing at the square's central statue, close enough to study the book in its subject's hands.