Original edition. First edition of the first work on electricity by the distinguished physicist and astronomer Giambattista Beccaria (1716-1781), professor of physics at the University of Turin from 1748, a position he successfully held for over twenty years. Beccaria was the promoter of modern English physics, in opposition to the then dominant Cartesian physics. This work, praised by Franklin for its masterful synthesis and clarity, exposes the fundamental elements of the new theory illustrating them through variants of Franklin's experiments, to which Beccaria added his own observations, modifying secondary aspects and trying to explain, first in Italy, meteorological and geophysical phenomena as manifestations of "natural" electricity. The success of his work made Beccaria the driving force behind the new theories. Furthermore, as a teacher he inspired several generations of students and his influence can be clearly seen in the early works of Alessandro Volta. See Rossetti and Cantoni, p. 14. Honeyman I, 250.