The building inaugurated in 1928 in a splendid position on the banks of the River Lario was designed to house the surviving scientific instruments of Alessandro Volta after the fire of the great exhibition held in Como in 1899 to celebrate the centenary of the invention of the battery.Reconstructions of those destroyed are also exhibited.Funds were provided by the cotton manufacturer Francesco Somaini and the edifice was designed and built by the architect Federico Frigerio in the neoclassical style with explicit references to the Pantheon.The rich array of equipment;machinery and instruments exhibited offer visitors a clear and complete overview of the range of Volta's studies and research;from the invention of the battery to his fundamental contributions in the fields of electricity and the study of gases and their properties.The upper loggia instead presents Alessandro Volta as a citizen of Como with his family and the awards he received.