Science and technology in Italy various astronomical observations, and initial formulation of the first and second laws of motion. Galileo was suppressed by the Catholic Church, but was a founder of modern science. The astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini, who made many important discoveries about the Solar System; the physicist Alessandro Volta, who invented the electric battery, thus providing for the first time a sustained source of current electricity; the mathematicians Giuseppe Peano, Lagrange, Fibonacci, and Gerolamo Cardano, whose "Ars Magna" is generally recognized as the first modern treatment on mathematics, made fundamental advances to the field; Marcello Malpighi, a doctor and founder of microscopic anatomy;
Alessandro Cruto Alessandro Cruto Alessandro Cruto was an Italian inventor, born in the village of Piossasco, who created the incandescent light bulb. Son of a construction foreman, he attended the school of architecture at the University of Turin, while also attending Physics and Chemistry lectures with the dream of crystallizing carbon to obtain diamonds. In 1872 he opened a small workshop in his home village where he conducted tests on the production of pure carbon from ethylene. His efforts were rewarded in 1874 when his experiments succeeded in producing thin sheets of graphite, albeit his initial purpose was that of producing diamonds.