Leonardo da Vinci’s multiple-barrelled organ design arranged 33 barrels in one group.
Leonardo designed the organ gun as a rapid-firing artillery concept. Instead of loading and firing a single barrel repeatedly, the device placed many small guns side by side. The arrangement could fire a broad volley and then be reloaded while another prepared row was used.
The weapon is associated with Leonardo’s military engineering studies and is sometimes called a 33-barrelled organ because its barrels resemble the pipes of a musical organ. The term “organ” refers to the visual arrangement, not to an instrument that produces music.
The design was not a modern machine gun. It relied on separate gunpowder charges and projectiles, and surviving drawings do not establish a successful battlefield deployment. Leonardo’s proposal belongs to a larger Renaissance search for ways to increase artillery firepower and reduce the delay between shots.