Leonardo da Vinci designed an organ gun, a multiple-barrel cannon arrangement intended to fire in sequence.
The weapon used several small cannon barrels mounted side by side on a frame. The arrangement resembled the pipes of a musical organ, which explains the name “organ gun.” Leonardo’s military designs used this layout to increase the number of shots that could be delivered quickly against an enemy formation.
The barrels were arranged so that they could be loaded and fired in an organized sequence. A wheeled carriage was also part of the concept, allowing the weapon to be moved on a battlefield. The design belongs to Leonardo’s broader work on artillery and military engineering in late-15th-century Italy.
An organ gun was not a modern machine gun. Its barrels still required loading and firing, and the design did not provide continuous automatic fire. It was also different from a mortar, which is designed chiefly for high-angle explosive fire.