Death and Legacy
Galvani actively investigated animal electricity until the end of his life. The Cisalpine Republic, a French client state founded in 1797 after the French occupation of Northern Italy, required every university professor to swear loyalty to the new authority. Galvani, who disagreed with the social and political confusion, refused to swear loyalty, along with other colleagues. This led to the new authority depriving him of all his academic and public positions, which took every financial support away. Galvani died in Bologna, in his brother’s house, on December 4, 1798.
Galvani's legacy includes:
- Galvani's report of his investigations were mentioned specifically by Mary Shelley as part of the summer reading list leading up to an ad hoc ghost story contest on a rainy day in Switzerland — and the resultant novel Frankenstein — and its reanimated construct. However, there is no direct mention of electrical reanimation in Frankenstein.
- Galvani's name also survives in the Galvanic cell, Galvani potential, galvanic corrosion, the galvanometer and galvanization.
- The crater Galvani on the Moon is named after him.
- The Società Chimica Italiana awards a medal to recognize the work of foreign electrochemists.
Read more about this topic: Luigi Galvani
Famous quotes containing the words death and/or legacy:
“We should stop looking to law to provide the final answer.... Law cannot save us from ourselves.... We have to go out and try to accomplish our goals and resolve disagreements by doing what we think is right. That energy and resourcefulness, not millions of legal cubicles, is what was great about America. Let judgment and personal conviction be important again.”
—Philip K. Howard, U.S. lawyer. The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America, pp. 186-87, Random House (1994)
“What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 14661536)