Cesare Laurenti (

Terracina Terracina is an Italian city and ''comune'' of the province of Latina, located on the coast southeast of Rome on the Via Appia ( by rail). The site has been continuously occupied since antiquity. History Ancient times Terracina appears in anci ...

, 1865 –

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus ( legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, 1921) was an Italian naval engineer.

Biography

Laurenti was a naval engineering officer who designed

submarines A submarine (or sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability. The term is also sometimes used historically or colloquially to refer to remotely ...

and founded a company to build them. He devoted himself to all branches of study in underwater navigation. In 1892 he became the director of technical experiments for the first Italian submarine, , which was driven by a battery-powered

electric motor An electric motor is an electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a wire winding to generate forc ...

and designed by Giacinto Pullino. Laurenti transformed it by adding a

gasoline engine A petrol engine (gasoline engine in American English) is an internal combustion engine designed to run on petrol (gasoline). Petrol engines can often be adapted to also run on fuels such as liquefied petroleum gas and ethanol blends (such as '' ...

, thus allowing a large surfaced cruising range while recharging the batteries underway. In 1909-10 he designed for the

US Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

. Laurenti is also credited with designing or assisting with the ''Provana'' class, 1905 ''Glauco'' class, ''Medusa'' class, ''Argonauta'', F class, and the 1914 British S class (later Italian).Gardiner, p. 275-277

References

Laurenti, Cesare
(in Italian) * Gardiner, Robert, ''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921'' Conway Maritime Press, 1985. . Italian engineers 1865 births 1921 deaths {{Italy-engineer-stub