Say the word “volt” and you’re quoting the man on the pedestal in Piazza Volta. Alessandro Volta was born in Como in 1745 and invented the electric pile, the first true battery. In 1800, he announced it in a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society of London.

The square wasn’t always here. In the Middle Ages the lakefront ran close by. A warehouse on nearby Via Olginati had a staircase with low steps, so beasts of burden could reach the granary.

VoiceMap’s tours use the square to introduce Volta, then trace his mark across Como. They point out the Tempio Voltiano museum across the bay and “The Life Electric,” Daniel Libeskind’s sculpture of two intertwined sine waves out on the lake.