Mountaineer. He was a 19th-century Italian mountaineer, as well as receiving success as a military figure and entomologist. As a passionate and well-trained mountaineer, he did many alpine excursions. Reaching his goal on August 12, 1863, he was the main promoter and organizer of the first Italian ascent of the highest mountain of the Cottian Alps, Mount Monviso, with his colleague Quintino Sella. Together with Sella and Bartolomeo Gastaldi, he officially founded on October 23, 1863 the Italian Alpine Club of which he was also director. In the 21st century with over 300 active members, the Italian Alpine Club is the oldest in Italy. After their climb, they illustrated topographical maps and provided a list of plants and insects collected on their adventure. They had excursions to Monte Ciamarella in 1867 and to Gran Sasso in 1871 and provided information from these trips as well. On December 2, 1883 he published information on glaciers in the "Alpine Journal" as well as presented his theory on the Ice Age to learned societies. He invented an ingenious slide rule, the Hypsologista, for determining the difference in the altitude of two locations from a pair of barometer observations, without the necessity to use tables or to make any arithmetical calculations. Born the son of Count Ignazio Ballada and Luigia Cavallero, his military career began at age 11 as a student at the Military Academy of Turin. By the age of 20, he obtained the rank of Lieutenant of Artillery and Engineers of Turin. As a professor of ballistics in the artillery and engineering application school, he was promoted to the rank of major by the end of 1848 and was secretary at the Permanent Artillery Congress, before becoming director of the Turin powder factory in 1850 and the Genoa powder factory in 1854. He remained at that post until his promotion to lieutenant colonel in 1855. In 1857 at the age of 42, after a brief stay in Fossano as director of that powder factory, he left his military career to devote himself completely to his favorite studies in physics and natural sciences. Some of his studies and research dealt with military weapons, which earned him the title of "founder of the science of modern artillery shooting." These credits gained him and the newly-formed Kingdom of Italy international recognition. He was a member of the National Academy of Lincei, the Academy of Sciences of Turin, the corresponding national member of the Royal Lombard Institute, and the Italian Society of Sciences, which is a society of the top 40 scholars in Italy. At the age of 63, he retired to a country house in Castagnole delle Lanze in the province of Asti, where he demonstrated a passion for entomology. He had collections of insects, especially species of beetles, which were wisely cataloged. In 1880, he had a 14-meter-high tower built to admire the entire Alpine chain, from Monte Rosa to the Maritime Alps. His health declined in 1881, and he died four years later. He published his 3-volume memoir, "Mémoires Scientifiques: Réunis Et lufis En Ordre." Of his best-known writings, "Principes de Thermodynamrgue," was published in Turin in 1865 and adopted as a textbook for English and German universities.