Volta & Monuments

At the end of the 18th century, Alessandro Volta of Como invented the first battery. We get the word volts as an electrical measurement from his name. If you speak a little Italian, you may have learned that Italians call batteries, pile. This may be because Volta’s first battery was called a voltaic pile: its construction involved a stack or pile of metal discs with a rod through the center of them.

The three stamps at the top of this page of my album show an image of Volta. The dates in the bottom left corner read, 1827 – the year Volta died – to 1927. So it’s the 100th anniversary of his death. The same year this stamp was issued, they built a museum in honor of him in Como, by the lake. I’ve been to the Volta museum a few times – well, I’ve passed by it, but never went inside since it was always closed when I was there.

Note

Now that I’m starting to fill in these pages with stamps, I’m thinking I could have put more stamps per page. I could tighten the layout of each page for less pages. I did that recently with my Pre-Unification album pages. I may do the same with these pages: there are too many pages for this colony album.

Contains 7 spots: own 7 – 7 unused, 0 used.
Page is finished.
Album or Web Page Last changed Feb 5, 2025

Stamp Details

The table below lists information about the stamps shown on this page of Lighthouse’s stamp album. For more details about a particular stamp, click on its description. That will take you to the related web page of Colnect.

spot

own

catalog

subject

description

comment

Alessandro Volta

1.1	✓	109	Alessandro Volta	20c (oct 1927) comm., violet
2.1	✓	110	Alessandro Volta	50c (oct 1927) comm., orange
2.2	✓	111	Alessandro Volta	1.25₤ (oct 1927) comm., blue

Voluntary Militia for National Security

3.1	✓	105	Castel Sant’Angelo	40+20c (apr 1927) semi-postal, brown & black
3.2	✓	106	Aqua Claudia	60+30c (apr 1927) semi-postal, red & brown
4.1	✓	107	Campidoglio	1.25₤+60c (apr 1927) semi-postal, blue & black
4.2	✓	108	Piazza & Porta del Popolo	5+2.50₤ (apr 1927) semi-postal, black & slate green

Footnotes

Spot refers to the postion of the stamp on the album page (e.g., 3.2 indicates row 3, position 2).
Amt. is an abbreviation for the face amount of the stamp.
Own indicates the stamp status: ✓ for unused; ✗ for used or canceled; ⭑ signifies I ordered one; ; ✨ indicates it was bought recently; ✠ means an auction bid is pending; and ◎ is used, and it costs too much for unused.
To search by catalog number, go to the search box and enter it in the catalog number box. However, it’s a bit broken; I need to fix it.