19th-century portrait stolen from museum in Italy

A portrait of the Italian scientist Alessandro Volta was stolen from the Permanente Museum of Milan, which hosts an exhibition of antiques, Report informs, citing foreign media sources.

The portrait, painted by the artist Gabriele Rottini in 1840, is worth 20,000 euros.

Alessandro Volta was an Italian physicist, chemist, and lay Catholic. He was a pioneer of electricity and power and is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane. He invented the voltaic pile in 1799 and reported the results of his experiments in 1800[5] in a two-part letter to the president of the Royal Society.