What government granted Galileo a 1594 patent for a horse-powered water pump?

The Venetian Republic granted Galileo a 1594 patent for a horse-powered water pump.

Galileo was living and teaching in Padua, then within the Republic of Venice, when the Venetian Senate awarded him a twenty-year privilege for a device designed to raise water and irrigate fields. The machine was described as operating with the motion of a single horse and supplying a continuous flow of water through multiple outlets.

This was an early example of Galileo seeking practical protection for an invention rather than working only as a theoretical scholar. The privilege restricted others in Venetian territory from making or using the device without authorization. It also required Galileo to disclose the invention and certify that it had not already been patented.

The wording “patent” is a modern shorthand for an early modern privilege, but the essential identification is clear: the granting authority was the Venetian state, specifically its Senate. The device should not be confused with Galileo’s later telescope work, which began after 1609, or with inventions associated with Florence and the Medici court. Galileo later moved to Florence, but the 1594 water-pump grant belongs to his Venetian period.