The XI International Barsanti and Matteucci Award will be presented to Gerhard Ertl, the 2007 Nobel Prize winner for chemistry, and inventor of the catalytic converter.
The award is promoted by the town of Pietrasanta to celebrate its famous fellow-citizen Padre Eugenio Barsanti, co-inventor, along with Felice Matteucci, of the internal combustion engine. It is an acknowledgement and sign of appreciation of those who continue the research and development into engines in Italy and abroad, as well as those who have rendered it famous by undertaking memorable sporting enterprises or journeys of exploration and discovery around the world.
The prize-giving ceremony will take place on Saturday November 6, at 5.30 pm, at the Pietrasanta Town Theatre, and will be attended by a number of political and institutional figures, previous winners and numerous guests from the world of business and scientific research.
Gerhard Ertl is responsible for having laid the theoretical foundations that led to the development of devices such as the catalytic converter and combustible batteries for hydrogen powered cars. His research has given a greater understanding of important phenomenon such as the hole in the ozone. Born in Stuttgart in 1936, Ertl is currently an emeritus professor at the Department of Chemistry at the Fritz Haber Institut der Max Planck Gesellschaft in Berlin.
Details:
by car: A12 motorway (exit Versilia) or ss1 road “Aurelia”, then follow the signs to Pietrasanta.
trains and busses from Lucca
Ufficio Stampa Comune di Pietrasanta
tel. 0584/795381; fax 0584/795588
e-mail: cultura@comune.pietrasanta.lu.it
Council of Pietrasanta
The invention of the gas engine is owed to the successful collaboration of Father Eugenio Barsanti and the engineer Felice Matteucci.
Eugenio Barsanti was born on the 12th October 1821 in Pietrasanta, where he went to the schools of the Fathers Scolopi. He continued his studies at the Scolopi’s schools in Florence. He completed there his education that was both scientific and religious: he was ordained in 1845. His encounter with Matteucci dates back to 1850: in this year the Matteucci proposed a project for the draining of the lake Bientina to the grand-ducal commission of which Father Barsanti was member. Felice Matteucci, son of the Prime Minister of the Princedom of Elisa Baciocchi, was born in Lucca in 1808. He studied at the Royal Bourbon College in Paris before he came back to Italy where he studied hydraulic engineering. From 1851 to 1864, when Barsanti died, the two worked together to the construction of different types of gas engines, which, from the prototype of 1853, gained also a fairly good commercial attention. Even though the idea of gas engines had already appeared before, the research and the achievements of Barsanti and Matteucci are the foundation on which the history of the gas engine has developed itself.