Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian physicist and chemist, who is credited as the inventor of the electrical battery and the discoverer of methane.his is called Volta's Law of Capacitance, and it was for this work the unit of electrical potential has been named the volt. In 1779 he became a professor of experimental physics at the University of Pavia, a chair that he occupied for almost 40 years.