Cars
The First Internal Combustion Engine in History Has Roared Again
In 1853, Barsanti and Matteucci created the first internal combustion engine. Forgotten for decades, it was faithfully rebuilt after 5,000 hours of research and work. In 2025, the engine was restarted in Florence, honoring Europe’s technological legacy.
In 1853, in Florence, Father Eugenio Barsanti and engineer Felice Matteucci filed the project for the first internal combustion engine in history. It was a single-cylinder engine with five horsepower, created and used at the workshops of the Maria Antonietta Railway Station in Florence to power a drill and a shear.
The engine was a three-stroke, gravity-atmospheric type with delayed action. It worked by compressing a mixture of air and gas inside a cylinder. A spark would then ignite the combustion, generating an explosion that pushed the piston. The linear force produced was then converted into rotary motion via a crank and connecting rod system—exactly the same process still used in modern internal combustion engines.
