Narciso Monturiol

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Narciso Monturiol
Portrait of Narciso Monturiol (1880).
Born(1819-09-28)September 28, 1819
Figueras, Gerona (Spain)
DiedSeptember 6, 1885(1885-09-06) (aged 65)
San Martín de Provensals, Barcelona (Spain)

Narciso Monturiol Estarriol[note 1] (Figueras, September 28, 1819 – San Martín de Provensals, September 6, 1885) was a Spanish engineer, intellectual, politician, painter and inventor.[1]

Monturiol is recognized, along with Cosme García Sáez, Isaac Peral and Antonio Sanjurjo, as a pioneer of submarine navigation worldwide.[2][3][4] The results of his trials are collected in his posthumous work, Ensayo sobre el arte de navegar por debajo del agua (Essay on the Art of Navigating Under Water), published in 1891.[5]

Biography

He was born into a family of artisans; his father was a cooper, and the family business gave him the opportunity to learn about processes related to waterproofing. After completing his secondary studies in philosophy in Cervera in 1838, he moved to Barcelona to study law at the University of Barcelona, where he graduated in 1845.[6] In 1846 he married his wife Emilia Mata, with whom he had eight children, three of whom died before reaching adulthood; two daughters, aged 15 and 17, died of tuberculosis.[7]

Political and publishing activity

Portrait of Narciso Monturiol, by Ramón Martí Alsina (Museum of the Empordà).

Instead of practicing his profession, he preferred to devote himself at first to politics, and later to science and technology. In 1842, in the middle of his studies, he was already working as a typographer and journalist at the newspaper El Republicano, of the republican group led by Abdón Tarredas.[8]

At first he became interested in utopian socialism, and in particular in the ideas of Étienne Cabet, with whom he corresponded. According to Josep Puig Pujades, author of his first biography, Monturiol enlisted during his early years in Barcelona in the National Militia, which defended constitutional and anti-authoritarian ideals. His political activities would lead him into exile or to trial on several occasions throughout his life.[7]

Together with Abdón Terradas, Anselmo Clavé, Ceferino Tresserra, Ildefonso Cerdá and other republicans, between 1846 and 1847 he founded a community called Icaria in the neighborhood of Poblenou, in the former municipality of Sant Martí de Provensals, which was one of the main representatives of the Cabetian current in Spain.[7] In 1846 he married his wife Emilia and, after learning the trade of typesetter, in 1847 he founded a printing house called Librería Oriental on La Rambla in Barcelona, from which he spread Icarian ideals, in particular through the magazine La Fraternidad (1847–1848), the first Spanish communist periodical.[9] In its pages he published a Spanish translation of Cabet's 1840 novel Voyage et aventures de lord William Carisdall en Icarie, as El Viaje a la Icaria (1848), produced by him and his friend Francisco José Orellana, in order subsequently to promote the creation of a Cabetian community in Barcelona, bearing the name of the island that inspired the novel.[10] He also founded the magazine La Madre de Familia (1846), in which he disseminated the most conservative aspects of Cabet's egalitarian communism; and he co-edited, with Juan Landa, the series Hombres y mujeres célebres de todos los tiempos.[11]

After the proclamation of the French Second Republic in February 1848, on March 19 an article titled Europa y la Revolución (Europe and the Revolution) was published in La Fraternidad; it was denounced and led to the closure of the newspaper. Monturiol had to go into exile in France, where he took part in the founding of Terradas's Junta Democrática, devoted to financing the democratic insurrection in Spain. Although he secretly visited his family in 1848, it was not until 1849, under an amnesty, that he returned to Barcelona to found a new magazine, El Padre de Familia (1849–1850), with the motto «educate yourselves, moralize yourselves», intended to raise the cultural level of the disadvantaged classes. In 1850 the government imposed on him a fine of 500 reales that he could not pay, so his printing press was seized, halting his publishing activism. He was also sentenced to 4 years in prison, which he never served thanks to a certain political opening of the time. In 1853 he formally asked to join one of the Icarian communes in the United States, and although he was accepted, he decided to stay in Spain to become part of the leadership of the Democratic Party, taking advantage of the political change of the Progressive Biennium.[7][8]

He later turned his attention to science and engineering, while to make a living he devoted himself to printing notebooks.[12] He resumed his publishing activity in 1864 with the publication of the Almanaque democrático, together with Anselmo Clavé.[13] In 1869 he published the book La submisión de las mujeres, a proto-feminist plea in defense of equal rights for women.[7]

The Ictíneo

Main articles: Ictíneo I and Ictíneo II

While taking refuge in Cadaqués because of his political activities, where he earned his living as a portrait painter, he observed the difficult and dangerous work of the coral gatherers. This led him to reflect on the possibilities of submarine navigation and, when he returned to Barcelona, in September 1857 he organized, with friends from the Empordà, the first commercial company in Spain devoted to the exploitation of this type of navigation, under the name Monturiol, Font, Altadill y Cía., with a capital of 10,000 pesetas.

In 1858, once the first funds had been obtained, he presented his project in a pamphlet titled El Ictíneo o barco-pez (The Ictíneo or Fish-Boat).[14] His first submarine, the Ictíneo I, was launched in the Port of Barcelona on June 28, 1859, and after a series of private dives, it made its public presentation on September 23. Before shareholders, the press and the general public, he managed to sail the vessel completely submerged for 2 hours and 20 minutes at a depth of 20 m, and to bring it back to the surface.

Replica of the Ictíneo I in front of the Maritime Museum of Barcelona.

The official trials would be carried out in the Port of Alicante on March 7, 1861, in the presence of Navy authorities; the government of Isabella II appointed several study commissions with a view to offering aid to the project, which never arrived, despite popular enthusiasm and the support of the Economic Societies of Friends of the Country.[15][16] As a result, Monturiol wrote a letter to the citizenry, encouraging a national subscription, with which he obtained 300,000 pesetas from Spanish citizens. With the capital obtained, the company La Navegación Submarina was established with the project of developing the Ictíneo II.[17]

The Ictíneo II attracted a certain interest from the high military authorities. This new submarine, which was equipped with an anaerobic propulsion system, was launched in the Port of Barcelona on October 2, 1864. Despite these successes, in 1867 his company went bankrupt and, given the lack of support, Monturiol decided to dismantle the submarine and abandon the project. There remain, however, the writings published during its development,[18][19] and his posthumous Ensayo sobre el arte de navegar por debajo del agua.[5]

Final years

From 1868 onward he returned to political activity. As a member of the Federal Party, he was deputy for Manresa to the Constituent Cortes of the First Spanish Republic in 1873 and, shortly afterward, was appointed director of the Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre, headquartered in Madrid, a post he held during the months that the republican regime lasted and where he put into practice a process of his own invention to increase the production speed of adhesive paper.

Replica of the wooden submarine Ictíneo II in the Old Port of Barcelona.

His other inventions included a machine for making notebooks, a machine for making cigarettes (the only one he patented, in 1866); rabbit feed made from willow wood, a cold process for manufacturing soap; synthetic shoe soles, a liquid glue for wood; liners for engine cylinders, a shoe polish, a velograph or device intended for obtaining copies of a written or drawn original, a project for a funicular tramway for Tarragona, a project to bring the waters of the Ter to Barcelona, a rotary steam receiver, and a system for preserving meat, among others.

In 1882 he still published a newspaper, El Anunciador Financiero. He died in 1885, ruined and completely forgotten, in San Martín de Provensals, a former town now incorporated into Barcelona, where in the years 1846–1847 a group of Catalan Cabetians had founded an Icarian community. He was buried in the East Cemetery of Barcelona, and his epitaph reads:

Here lies D. Narciso Monturiol, inventor of the Ictíneo, the first submarine vessel, in which he sailed along the bottom of the sea in the waters of Barcelona and Alicante in 1859, 1860, 1861 and 1862.

Tomb of Narciso Monturiol.
Monument to Narciso Monturiol (in the city of Figueras).

In 1972 his remains were moved to Figueras to be interred in the Pantheon of Illustrious Men of the municipal cemetery.[20]

Works

  • Un reo de muerte. Las ejecuciones y los espectadores: consejos de un padre a sus hijos (1844)
  • El Ictíneo o barco-pez (1858)
  • Memoria sobre la navegación submarina (1860)
  • Estudios de Historia Natural
  • Del magnetismo terrestre
  • Estudio de las corrientes marinas
  • Descubrimiento del Polo
  • La gravitación universal
  • La submisión de las mujeres (1869)
  • De qué manera soy comunista (pamphlet)
  • Mi credo comunista (pamphlet)
  • Ensayo sobre el arte de navegar por debajo del agua (posthumous, 1891)[21]

Legacy

Director Francesc Bellmunt made a biographical film in 1993 about Monturiol's life titled Monturiol, el senyor del mar.[22]

Since 1982 the Generalitat of Catalonia has awarded a prize for scientific and technological progress in Catalonia called the Narcís Monturiol Prize.

There are several monuments in honor of the Catalan engineer, such as the 1963 Monument to Narcís Monturiol by the sculptor Josep Maria Subirachs, located on the Avenida Diagonal in Barcelona, the monument on the Rambla of Figueres inaugurated in 1918, or the replicas of the Ictíneo I at the Maritime Museum of Barcelona and of the Ictíneo II in the Old Port of Barcelona.[23]

Spanish Navy

The Spanish Navy has used the name Narciso Monturiol for four of its submarines. The first was the Narciso Monturiol (A-1), an Italian-built submarine, active in the Spanish Navy from 1917 to 1934. The Narciso Monturiol (S-33) and Narciso Monturiol (S-35) were two Balao-class submarines that fought with the United States Navy in the Pacific War, and that later became part of the Spanish Navy, receiving the name Narciso Monturiol. The last submarine of the Spanish Navy to bear the engineer's name is the Narciso Monturiol (S-82), whose construction began in 2007.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In many modern articles in Catalan, as well as some in Spanish, he is called Narcís Monturiol, even though he did not use the Catalan form. See: "Narcís Monturiol, un humanista por los abismos del mar". Documentos RNE (in español). RNE. 2010-05-08. (55:25 minutes).

References

  1. ↑ "Narcís Monturiol". RTVE.es (in español). 2011-07-05. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  2. ↑ Pioneros de la Navegación Submarina. Spanish Navy, Ministry of Defense.
  3. ↑ Museo Naval de San Fernando (y II): Armamento e historia. Armas, 2009.
  4. ↑ Sala XVI - Arma submarina. Naval Museum of San Fernando.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Ensayo sobre el arte de navegar bajo el agua. Narciso Monturiol. Inventor del Ictíneo o Barco-pez. 1st edition, Barcelona, 1891, Imprenta de Henrich y C.º en comandita. 280 pp, 17 x 24 cm, ISBN 84-85403-38-X
  6. ↑ "Narcís Monturiol Estarriol | Real Academia de la Historia". dbe.rah.es (in español). Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Aguilar Cestero, Raül. (2018). Narcís Monturiol : i el submarí que posaria fi a totes les guerres (1819-1895) (in català). Icaria. ISBN 978-84-9888-852-2. OCLC 1048103365. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Narcís Monturiol Estarriol | Real Academia de la Historia". dbe.rah.es (in español). Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  9. ↑ La redención del pueblo: la cultura progresista en la España liberal, Manuel Suárez Cortina. University of Cantabria, 2006, p. 304.
  10. ↑ El Programa del PSOE en 1880. Historia de España. Hispanidad.
  11. ↑ La mujer en el socialismo utópico español[dead link]. Feminismo y socialismo en España (1840-1868). Antonio Elorza. Tiempo de Historia, issue 3, Madrid, 1975.
  12. ↑ Historia de la prensa pedagógica en España. Antonio Checa Godoy. University of Seville, 2002, p. 254. ISBN 978-84-472-0711-4
  13. ↑ Los Autores del Almanaque democrático a sus conciudadanos. Librería española de I. López, editor. Barcelona, 1864.
  14. ↑ Proyecto de navegación submarina. El Ictíneo o Barco-pez. Narciso Monturiol. Establecimiento tipográfico de Narciso Ramírez, Barcelona, 1858.
  15. ↑ El Aire: mitos, ritos y realidades. José Luis Anta Félez. Barcelona, Anthropos, 1999, p. 379. The newspaper La Verdad, of Alicante, published in its issue of May 11, 1861 an account of the official trial:

    The waves rose to such a great height that some came to cover the tip of the pier, where there was an immense crowd; the boats and feluccas could only with great effort keep their bows to the sea; the always transparent waters of the bay of Alicante were entirely murky; there was a ground swell and the wind was from the east. The Ictíneo, however, majestically followed the course that had been set for it, without deviating from its heading, now appearing at the surface for an instant, now submerging and sailing sometimes between two waters, sometimes along the bottom.
  16. ↑ Boletín de la Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de Málaga, Volumen 1, año 2:15 (March 31, 1862).
  17. ↑ El Ictíneo ante la ciencia. La Vanguardia, September 28, 1890, p. 3.
  18. ↑ Memoria sobre la navegación submarina por el inventor del Ictíneo o Barco-pez. Narciso Monturiol. Establecimiento tipográfico de Narciso Ramírez, Barcelona, 1860. 56 p.
  19. ↑ A la prensa periódica, a propósito de la construcción de un ictíneo de guerra. Narciso Monturiol. Imprenta de Narciso Ramírez, Barcelona, 1860. 8 p.
  20. ↑ La Vanguardia, March 29, 1972, page 32.
  21. ↑ Cervantes, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de. "Ensayo sobre el arte de navegar por debajo del agua / escrito por el inventor del Ictíneo o Barco-pez Narciso Monturiol". Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes (in español). Retrieved 2021-07-22.
  22. ↑ "Monturiol, el señor del mar" (in español). Peliculastv.com. Retrieved July 9, 2011.
  23. ↑ FIGUERESANTIC, Publicat per. "Construcció del Monument a Narcis Monturiol" (in català). Retrieved 2022-02-28.

Bibliography

  • AGUILAR CESTERO, Raül: Narcís Monturiol i el submarí que posaria fi a totes les guerres (1819-1895), Icaria Editorial, Barcelona, 2018. ISBN 978-84-9888-852-2
  • BURGOYNE, Alan H: Submarine Navigation. Past and Present, London: G. Richards, 1903.
  • D'ÉQUEVILLEY, R: Les Bateaux sous-marins et les submersibles, Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1901.
  • ESTRANY, Jerónimo: Narciso Monturiol y la navegación submarina. Juicios críticos. Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 1915.
  • Enciclopedia Espasa, volume 36.
  • FREIXA PEDRALS, Enric, Arrels per a una Universitat, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, 1986.
  • GARCÍA BARRÓN, Cándido: Naves submarinas. Documentos para la historia de la tecnología.
  • MONJÓ y PONS, Juan: Los sufrimientos morales que me ha causado el Ictíneo, Barcelona, facsimile edition by the Diputación de Barcelona, 1985.
  • MONTURIOL ESTARRIOL, Narciso: Ensayo sobre el arte de navegar por debajo del agua. Editorial MAXTOR, 2010. ISBN 84-9761-866-1 [1]
  • MORENO RICO, Xavier: El Vaixell-peix de Narcís Monturiol: mite i realitat. Sabadell, Fundació Bosch i Cardellach, 1999. ISBN 84-95113-03-1
  • NIETO GALÁN, Agustí, La seducción de la máquina. Vapores submarinos e inventores, Madrid, Nivola, 2001. ISBN 84-95599-10-4
  • Real Academia de Ciencias: Acerca de los principios enunciados por Monturiol como constitutivos de su invento y que se refieren a las ciencias naturales y físicas, File 4,844, June 24, 1861. Historical archive of the Academy.
  • RIERA i TUÈBOLS, Santiago: Narcís Monturiol: una vida apassionant, una obra apassionada, Barcelona, Generalitat de Catalunya, 1986. ISBN 84-393-0708-X
  • RODRÍGUEZ CABANACH, Pau: Narcís Monturiol: Trajectòria i pensament polític més enllà del submarí, Ab Origine, 2021.
  • STEWART, Matthew: El Sueño de Monturiol, Madrid, Taurus, 2004. ISBN 84-306-0562-2
  • SANMATETO, Javier: El Fracaso de Narciso Monturiol, Madrid, Ágora 2016. ISBN 9788494075513
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