Felice Matteucci

Felice Matteucci (February 12 1808 - September 13 1887) was an Italian hydraulic engineer and co-inventor, with Eugenio Barsanti, of the internal combustion engine.

Born in Lucca, he studied hydraulic and mechanical engineering firstly in Paris then later in Florence.In 1851 he meet Father Barsanti appreciating his ideas for a new type of engine. They had a life-long collaboration developing the primary invention into a manufactuable item.

After the death of Barsanti in 1864 and following the failure of society in their time to promote the engine, he returned to his previous work as a hydraulic engineer. He studied new hydrometers (to measure the level of a river), rain gauges, and hydraulic operations over rivers.

In 1877 he unsuccessfully argued that he and his partner Barsanti were the originators of the invention of the internal combustion engine. The patent by Nikolaus August Otto was very similar to the Barsanti-Matteucci design. This frustration contributed to Matteucci's ill that eventually caused his death, in his own home in Capannori, near Lucca in Tuscany.

ee also

*History of the internal combustion engine