The article by Davide Lovisolo, pubblished in the first issue of 2017 of this journal, introduces Hermann von Helmholtz, one of the most polyhedric figures in the history of science of the 19th Century. In his reconstruction, Lovisolo does not fail to emphasize that, besides the main interests in physiology, psychophysics and vision theory, Helmholtz devotes much of his maturity to problems related to the physical and physiological sensation of sound.