Gunpowder Artillery in Europe, 1326–1500: Innovation and Impact

Chapter 2 Gunpowder Artillery in Europe, 1326–1500: Innovation and Impact

Clifford J. Rogers

1 The Technical Development and Capabilities of Gunpowder Artillery: 1326–1500

In 1326–1327 an English manuscript illuminator provided us with the first de- pictions of guns in European art. (Illustration 2.1) In 1327, as we know from documentary evidence, the town council of the city of Florence ordered the acquisition of a number of “engines called cannon,” along with the iron balls they shot, for the defense of the city.1 These Florentine guns of 1327 were probably similar in scale to the one found in the ruins of Monte Varmine, which was destroyed in 1341. This forged-iron weapon, meant to be mounted on a wooden stock, was 20 cm long, had a trumpet- shaped tube expanding from 4 cm diameter at the base to 6.4 cm at the mouth,

Illustration 2.1 Depiction of Early European Cannon from De notabilitatibus (1327)

1 Angelo Angelucci, Delle artiglierie da fuoco Italiane. Memorie storiche con documenti inediti (Turin: G. Cassone, 1862), 16–17n. Note that the document is given as “die 11 februarii mcccxx- vi,” and every single secondary source I have seen referring to this document dates it to 1326, but the Florentine new year did not begin until March 25, so the text actually dates to 1327.

40 Rogers and weighed 2.7 kg. It most likely threw an iron ball of around 4.6 cm diameter weighing about 370 grams—rather larger than the acorns used as a metaphor for cannon-shot by Petrarch in the 1350s.2 The other type of cannon in use at the time, as depicted in the 1326–1327 illuminations of Walter de Milimete’s manu- scripts De secretis secretorum and De notabilitatibus, was larger—a piece of artillery rather than a hand-gun—and designed to shoot either lead balls or heavy lances. Over the next century, gunpowder artillery developed rapidly, so that the gunners of each new generation worked with weapons quite different from those their fathers had employed. Indeed, gunpowder artillery changed as much in each twenty-five year period between 1325 and 1500 as it did over the following three centuries. (Illustration 2.2) But what drove this development? Some historians have suggested that the spread of and progress in gunpowder technology over its first century was

Illustration 2.2 Development of European Cannon

2 Angelo Angelucci, Documenti inediti per la storia delle armi da fuoco Italiane (Turin: G. Cas- sone, 1869), 69. My estimate for the size and weight of the ball assumes it sat just inside the mouth. Angelucci’s sketch shows the ball smaller and set fairly close to the touch-hole, but that would not have allowed for a reasonable weight of powder to drive an iron ball. This is similar to the bombards used by the Papal States in 1350, which fired iron balls averaging 280 grams, so about 4.2 cm in diameter, and even closer to the one-pound (339g, 4.5 cm) balls fired by four bombards purchased in 1358. By that date, the Papal States had acquired dozens of guns and thousands of iron balls. Alberto Pasquali-Lasagni and Emilio Stefanelli, “Nota di storia dell’artigleria dello Stato della Chiesa ni secoli xiv e xv,” Archivo della R. Dep- utazione romana di Storia patria 60 (1937), 149–189, at 150–53. See also Gustav Köhler, Die Entwickelung des Kriegswesens und der Kriegführung in der Ritterzeit, 3 vols. in 5 (Breslau: W. Koebner, 1886–1887), vol. 3, pt. 1, 250, 226 (Petrarch). A better match for Petrarch’s “acorns” would be the half-pound (170g, 3.6 cm) iron balls fired by certain Papal “bombarda magna” in 1358. Pasquali-Lasagni and Stefanelli, “Nota di storia dell’artigleria,” 153. Angelucci also gives details of a now-lost gun of somewhat similar proportions that was cast with the date 1322; I have not referred to it in my main text because I am not confident that it is not a later fake. Documenti, 99.