Voltaic pile Voltaic pile The voltaic pile was the first electrical battery that could continuously provide an electric current to a circuit. It was invented by Italian physicist Alessandro Volta, who published his experiments in 1799. The voltaic pile then enabled a rapid series of other discoveries including the electrical decomposition (electrolysis) of water into oxygen and hydrogen by William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle (1800) and the discovery or isolation of the chemical elements sodium (1807), potassium (1807), calcium (1808), boron (1808), barium (1808), strontium (1808), and magnesium (1808) by Humphry Davy. The entire 19th century electrical industry was powered by batteries
Bust of Alessandro Peretti di Montalto Bust of Alessandro Peretti di Montalto The Bust of Alessandro Peretti di Montalto is a portrait sculpture by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Executed in 1622 and 1623, the sculpture is currently housed in the Kunsthalle Hamburg, in Germany. Although possibly mentioned by one of Bernini's early biographers, the bust had been considered lost and therefore makes no appearance in Rudolf Wittkower's catalogue of Bernini’s sculptures of 1955. However, the bust was identified in the 1980s and is now considered an authentic work by Bernini. Bernini had already been commissioned by Cardinal Montalto to create the Neptune and Triton