Barsanti and Matteucci Museum
The Barsanti and Matteucci Internal Combustion Engine Museum, located in the Antica Loggetta dei Guinigi in Via Sant'Andrea, retraces the life events, works and successes of the two inventors Eugenio Barsanti, a priest and physics teacher born in Pietrasanta, and Felice Matteucci, an engineer from Lucca.
Address: Via Sant'Andrea, 58 Lucca
phone: 0583 467870
E-MAIL: info@barsantiematteucci.it
website: barsantiematteucci.it
accessibility: The Museum is spread over two floors inside a building with architectural restrictions.
For people with motor disabilities, the two rooms on the ground floor are accessible where it is possible to view the documents and videos displayed on the upper floor on a monitor.
timetables:
From October 1st to March 31st, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays 11:00 am - 17:00 pm
From April 1st to September 30th, Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, 11:00 am - 19:00 pm
Easter holiday period: 11:00 am - 19:00 pm
during Lucca Comics & Games and during the Christmas holidays from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm
Open January 1st and 6th, January 6th, Easter, Easter Monday, April 25th, June 2nd, August 15th, September 14th, November 1st, December 8th, December 26th:
entrance: Free
The Barsanti and Matteucci Internal Combustion Engine Museum adheres to Lucca Visit Card the cumulative ticket that allows access to the main places of cultural interest and attractions of the city
It was Barsanti who intuited the possibility of transforming the explosion of flammable gases into mechanical force; then the collaboration with Matteucci (1851) led to the design and construction of a continuous motion "machine" capable of cyclically repeating this transformation and obtaining a constant supply of mechanical energy.
In 1853, to protect the invention of the first model of internal combustion engineThe two submitted a written report to the prestigious Accademia dei Georgofili in Florence. Ten years later, a 4-horsepower engine was built at the Bauer workshops in Milan. It was so successful that large-scale production was planned to begin the following year at the John Cockerill Company in Seraing, Belgium. However, Barsanti, having arrived in Belgium, fell ill and died within a few days.
The two Lucchese's project went up in smoke, and despite its great success and Matteucci's efforts to secure credit for the invention, it never received official recognition in Europe. In the decades that followed, Nikolaus Otto and Eugen Langen's engines gained widespread fame and were remembered as a milestone in the development of the automobile.
Today the genius of Barsanti and Matteucci is unanimously recognized internationally.
In the Museum, you can find extensive documentation and read the writings relating to the studies conducted by the two inventors. The detailed accounts of the experiments and techniques perfected, the certificates and patents accumulated over the years, testify to the revolutionary scope of the invention, which ultimately led to its definitive claim to primacy.
In the two welcoming rooms on the ground floor there are reproductions of the first engine models designed by Barsanti and Matteucci, running on compressed airWith a simple gesture it is possible to activate the machines and see how the mechanisms work.