BECCARIA, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1716-1781), Italian physicist, was born at Mondovi, and entered the religious order of the Pious Schools in 1732. He became professor of experimental physics, first at Palermo, then at Rome, and later at Turin, where he died. Beccaria, who was a fellow of the English Royal Society, did much, in the way both of experiment and exposition, to spread a knowledge of the electrical researches of Franklin and others. His principal work was the treatise Dell' Elettricismo Naturale ed Artificiale (1753 ; Eng. trans. 1776).