Documents and Patents

Encouraged by the achievement of the certificate and also by the experimental tests on the engine built by Officine Benini, on 21 October 1854, Barsanti and Matteucci formed the Association for the Construction of a new engine in order to exploit in the best way the future patents and the profits of the application of the invention.

The Association was open “to those who may like to contribute to this enterprise with profit sharing in proportion to the economic commitment”. This was a preview of the Company that would start up 5 years later.

In 1854, or perhaps the following year, Barsanti and Matteucci probably built an engine according to the English certificate project: a two-cylinder, delayed action engine, with twin cylinders operating on the same driving shaft.

Certainly, in 1856 a twin-cylinder engine complying with the English certificate of 1854 was built by the Benini Foundry, capable of developing a power of 8 horsepower.

The engine was used to drive some machine tools in the workshop of the Maria Antonia railway station in Florence, as reported in the Proceedings of the Royal Lombard Institute of Sciences, Letters and Arts, vol. III, fasc. XVII, Milan 1863.

After obtaining the certificate in England, Barsanti and Matteucci let it lapse due to non-payment of the installment or ignorance of the English laws regarding patents or for any unknown reason.

Meanwhile, the engine underwent new and continuous improvements, that enabled our scientists to apply for another and new patent in the same country.

This operation, according to the experts in the sector, had to be carried out in the strictest silence, without advertising even from the press or otherwise. In these terms, Mr Newton, a clerk at the London Patent Office, expressed himself.

On 12 June 1857, Barsanti and Matteucci finally obtained a second English patent, n ° 1655. The provisional certificate of the patent was sent to them on June 29th of the same year.

On 12 December 1857, the Great Seal Patent Office grants patent n° 1655 to Barsanti and Matteucci for the invention of an Improved Apparatus For Obtaining Motive Power From Gases.

The construction solutions for this patent were two: the first equipped with an auxiliary piston, the so-called counter piston, the second without the auxiliary piston.

The engine, which was of the delayed action type, still employed a rack and a spool equipped with a pawl for converting the longitudinal motion of the piston into a rotary one.
The cylinder was placed vertically with the head down; it was open at the top so as to allow the piston to move in the air. The lower part was closed by a steady iron cap fixed by bolts (similar to the heads of current engines).

The cap housed two conical valves (like those of current engines) with springs that open outwards. In the lower part of the cylinder (explosion chamber), where the explosion of the gaseous mixture took place, there were a second piston (counter piston), driven by a cam moved by the motor shaft; its function was to suck in the gaseous mixture and expel the products of the previous combustion from the cylinder.

A device similar to the slide valve of steam engines was placed on the side of the combustion chamber, which regulated the introduction of air and hydrogen into the combustion chamber through two communicating openings. The slide valve was put into action by two rods commanded by two cams rotated by the motor shaft.

In the same patent, Barsanti and Matteucci also presented the design of a simpler engine that could produce faster rotation. The engine did not have an auxiliary piston and the single piston ran the entire length of the cylinder, performing the same functions as the auxiliary one, that is, aspirating the gaseous mix and expelling it at the end of the cycle; the various phases were organized by a slide valve which would close the air and gas entrances. Substantially, it was the same engine which had been experimented in the Maria Antonia railroad station workshop at Florence, even though it differed because it had only one cylinder.
The electric spark in the gaseous mix occurred when the openings of the chamber were closed and the piston was rising in the cylinder, and not linked to the driving shaft by the pinion pawl that engaged the piston rack.

It should be noted that the text of this patent had never been brought to the attention of those who have been interested in the work of Barsanti and Matteucci (even if its existence was known). It precedes the French patent by a very short time and can therefore be considered the first important official patent of the Barsanti and Matteucci engine.
In addition to the above, two observations are reported.

First, Barsanti and Matteucci intended to address the issue of applying their engine to the locomotive. In fact, they write:

“ … when applying this Invention to a locomotive engine, as it is intended to supply the place of two double action (or high-pressure) cylinders, four cylinders must be employed, one on each of two pairs of driving wheels, the main shafts being made to drive these wheels by means of connecting rods or gearing combined in such a manner as to change the direction of rotation by means of clutches.”

Secondly, since the engine reached very high temperatures during operation, the combustion chamber was expected to be surrounded by a jacket where water could flow for cooling:

“…This cylinder is divided into two unequal parts, the smallest of which u,v,s,x, is intended for the working of the piston. This chamber is surrounded with a racket filled with water for the purpose of preventing it from attaining too high a temperature.”

On 9 January 1858, Barsanti and Matteucci also obtained the patent in France. The drawings contained therein are absolutely identical to those of the English patent, except for some symbols, which in some parts of the drawings are different. It is therefore the French patent for the same engine already patented in England.
The French patent was preceded by a similar patent obtained in the state of Piemonte on December 30, 1857 with No. 579 of Volume VI of the Savoy Patent Office. Barsanti and Matteucci had turned to the agency of Capuccio and Latini, which had carried out the related procedures.

On January 2, 1858, they filed a patent request for the first version of the opposing piston engine in Turin: the patent bears the number 700 of Volume VII of the Patent Office of the Kingdom of Piemonte.
In August 1861, Barsanti, Matteucci and Babacci, (the latter had begun to collaborate since February 1857), presented to the Patent Office of the Kingdom of Piemonte the request for a patent relating to a new type of deferred action engine with opposing pistons.

The patent was granted on October 28, 1861, Volume III No. 141, entitled New improved method to use the explosion of a mixture of atmospheric air and a flammable gas to achieve a useful force.
The examination of the patent shows that the text is similar to that of the English patent of December 31, 1861 n ° 3270, entitled Improved apparatus for obtaining motive power from explosive compounds, registered on April 29, 1862.

This patent also contains a reference to a machine already built by the inventors, which undoubtedly corresponds to the engine built by Escher-Wyss of Zurich.
In March 1862, Matteucci went to Paris on account of the New Engine Society, with the aim of renewing expired patents and claiming the priority of the invention over Lenoir’s direct-acting engine. On 31 March he filed a second French patent, n ° 53609, which was issued only in the name of Felice Matteucci, entitled Un systéme perfectionné de moteurs à air et à gaz, registered on 24 May 1862.

On July 16, 1862, the English patent was also registered in Belgium with the number 12922, issued to Barsanti, Matteucci and Babacci, with the wording “Brevet d’importation” and entitled Nouveaux Systèmes perfectionnés pour obtenir une force motrice par la détonnation d’un mélange d’air atmosphérique et d’un gaz inflammable et par une autre composition détonnante quelconque.

After Barsanti’s death and Matteucci’s ouster from the technical management of the New Engine Society, Felice continued to take care of the engine and to imagine new solutions, which he patented in Italy on 25 June 1866 with the patent n ° 3096, issued to Felice Matteucci and companions of Florence, entitled Double-acting igneous-pneumatic engine, registered in the Industrial Bulletin of the Kingdom of Italy Volume VI n ° 485.

Even Babacci, who had abandoned the New Engine Society in 1862, had continued to be interested in the internal combustion engine, so much so that on 5 April 1868 he presented in Italy the patent no.3849 entitled New gas engine systems, Babacci systems, registered in the Industrial Bulletin of the Kingdom of Italy on 7 May 1868 Volume VIII n ° 195.

The patents documented to date obtained by Barsanti, Matteucci and Babacci are summarized below.

The documentation for the English Patents were always prepared by the Newton Agency of London. The Belgian Patents were prepared by the Bosquet Agency.