Galvani’s most important research was carried out in the field of electro-physiology, which he started in 1780, or perhaps earlier, continued for a decade, and summed up in the famous Commentarius de viribus electricitatis in motu musculari. This work first appeared in 1791 among the pamphlets in volume VII of Bononiensis Scientiarum et Artium Instituto atque Academia Commentarii.

From "Commentarius"

It was then published separately, in the following year, in a version edited and annotated by his nephew and aide, Giovanni Aldini, and expanded by Don Bassiano Carminati’s letter to Galvani and the latter’s reply.

Before the Commentarius, Galvani had written several items on animal electricity, in which we can see how his theory developed. There are five Galvani manuscripts which were published posthumously: the Essay on the Power of Nerves in Relation to Electricity is dated 25th November 1782, a memo on “Connections and differences between respiration , the flame and the electric probe from a charged Leyden jar”(De consensu et Differentiis inter respirationem et flammam, penicillumque electricum prodiens ex acuminato conductore Leidensis phialae de industria oneratae), a memo dated 30th October 1786 and entitled De animali electricitate, one entitled Electricitas naturalis and dated 16th August 1787, and another in Latin (without a title in Galvani’s manuscrit) about muscle movement produced by electricity.

The publication of the Commentarius made a sensation in the international scientific community and started the long controversy with Alessandro Volta. Tied up with this debate, which was conducted in a very even-tempered manner, especially if one considers the bitterness of some contemporary arguments, was the 1794 publication of the Treatise on the Use and Effect of the Conducting Arc in Muscle Contraction followed by the Supplement to the Treatise on the Use and Effect of the Conducting Arc in Muscle Contraction (in neither work is the author’s name mentioned; they are probably attributable to Galvani but another name has been proposed: Giovanni Aldini), and the Memo on Animal Electricity addressed to Lazzaro Spallanzani.