Eugenio Barsanti

Eugenio Barsanti - Inventor of the internal combustion engine

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As opposed to what is believed, in fact, the creation of the first four-stroke engine - that of Nikolaus Otto who, associating himself with Karl Benz, led to the birth of Benz Velociped dated 1886 - is the consequence of the discovery of a physics teacher from Pietrasanta, Father Eugenio Barsanti, and of the developments made by these together with an engineer from Lucca, Felice Matteucci.

It was in fact June 6,1853,14 years earlier than the patent of Nikolaus Otto, when Eugenio Barsanti and Felice Matteucci filed a document at the Accademia dei Georgofili in Florence (there was still no patent office) describing the invention of the first internal combustion engine in history.

Eugenio Barsanti was a priest, but also a physicist and mathematician. He was born in 1821 in Pietrasanta, Versilia, in the province of Lucca, with the name of Nicolò. At the age of 17 he decided to enter the convent of Sant' Agostino in Pietrasanta, under the academic direction of the congregation of the Scolopi Fathers. He entered it in order to study at the convent's scientific school. He was ordained a priest some time later with the name of Father Eugenio, not before having obtained his higher studies with excellent results in all subjects and in particular in scientific subjects.

Those of Barsanti were times of turmoil and industrial experimentation. Steam energy was driving forward transport and the tools needed for the infrastructure of the time. This was how Father Eugenio, once the novitiate was over, decided to attend the San Giovannino College, until later he was called to the teaching of physics and mathematics in Volterra, at the college of San Michele.

It was the year 1843 and, compared to the other Barsanti teachers, it was called "the teacher", given its young age and slender build. The pupils were in fact used to quite other things. It was in Volterra that he developed what was initially only an idea: to use the bursting of a mixture of air and gas to produce a new driving force. To do this, he used a reproduction of Alessandro Volta's gun (the great Italian physicist) also called "electrologopneumatic gun" or simply "Volta's gun", a sort of vessel with a long neck, which he personally had built up and which, filled with hydrogen and air and then hermetically closed with a cork cap and a brass bar, managed to burst through it. The bursting of the arnese was such that it was catapulted on the ceiling, with great fright of the pupils but showing how such spark could have triggered the bursting of the container and the propulsion of the same. Had Barsanti created a new force, capable of generating movement? It seems like yes: Volta had discovered detonation, Barsanti had added a driving force to it.

The college was too "narrow" for Barsanti's ingenious intuitions and destiny wanted him to continue his experiments in physics at the Ximeniano Observatory in Florence (now part of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology), a university level structure, where he also had the opportunity to meet Felice Matteucci, also Lucchese, who at that time was working on the reclamation of the Bientina lake, and Still today, the Institute still houses the so-called "Barsanti Matteucci", the reproduction of the first internal combustion combustion engine, built in 1860 at the Officine Bernini in Florence. The invention consisted of a machine that did not need to be pressurised like steam, but needed a simple ignition to start. The two had already led to the filing of patents in 1853 in several European countries such as Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany, in addition to the filing of documents at the Accademia dei Georgofili in Florence. The agreement and collaboration between the two was such that together they set up a company, the Company for the new engine Barsanti and Matteucci.

The discovery itself grandiose in scientific terms, was also great in economic terms, considering that the steam engine produced a force at a cost of 12 cents, compared to the two cents needed for the production of force in the new discovery. Despite the filing of patents, the practical recognition beyond the Italian borders was not a great success: in other European countries it seemed preferable to use the patent of a certain Etienne Lenoir (franco-Belgian), even if filed a few years later than the Italian patent. The collaboration between the two Italian physicists did not stop and led to the creation of new prototypes (also with the help of several workshops, including Giovanni Battista Babacci, a mechanic from Forlì, and Escherwyss from Zurich). In 1864, in Liège, in Belgium, John Cockeril's mining company decided to use Barsanti's engine for a first series production, because it was proven to be much more efficient than Lenoir's engine, as it was the result of the prototype built in the Bauer workshops in Milan.

Father Eugenio Barsanti's life was all study, physical experimentation and ecclesiastical duty. He died of an acute form of typhoid fever on 19 April 1864, at only 43 years of age, while he was about to reach Seraing in Belgium, where he was to participate in the start of series construction of his engine. At his death Matteucci was lucky enough to pursue the protection and commercialisation of the mechanisms designed with Barsanti, who were in fact overwhelmed by the claim of the invention of the internal combustion engine by Nilolaus August Otto and several others who claimed the patent (including Christian Reithmann in 1860 and Alphonse Beau de Rochas in 1862).
Pietrasanta recalls Eugenio Barsanti also thanks to the writings today kept in the archives of the library of the Galileo Museum in Florence (formerly Institute and Museum of History of Science). His remains, after having been transferred several times, today rest in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence.

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