Filippo da Modena or Fioravante da Bologna

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Filippo da Modena or Fioravante da Bologna

fl. 1430s

Italian engineers who built Italy's first canal lock, and indeed one of the first pound locks in Europe, at Milan. Bringing together two staunches or gates between the Via Arena and the Naviglio Grande, they managed to get the gates as close together as possible, and thus were able to reduce water loss—in other words, to "lock" the water in.