Como

This guide to Como asks whether a stack of metal discs could really prove a dead frog wrong. It follows the feud between Alessandro Volta, born in Como in 1745, and his rival Luigi Galvani, who believed the electricity that twitched a frog's leg lived inside the animal itself. You'll hear how Volta built a device from metal discs and brine-soaked cloth to test his theory, without any living tissue at all, and how news of it reached Napoleon in Paris. The lakeside Tempio Voltiano, built like a small Pantheon, is a short walk from the harbor if you want to see what survived a fire in 1899.