What Leonardo da Vinci invention was designed to carry 33 small cannons on one platform?

Leonardo da Vinci’s 33-barrel organ was designed to carry 33 small cannons on one platform.

The weapon appears in Leonardo’s military engineering studies from the late fifteenth century. Its name comes from the organ-like arrangement of multiple barrels. The barrels were mounted in rows on a wheeled frame, allowing many shots to be fired in succession or as a concentrated volley.

Leonardo’s purpose was to improve the speed and efficiency of artillery. A conventional cannon needed to be reloaded after each shot, while a multi-barrel arrangement could prepare several weapons at once. The frame could also be tilted to aim the barrels at a chosen elevation.

The design should not be confused with a modern machine gun. Its separate barrels were firearms rather than a single continuously firing mechanism, and there is no evidence that Leonardo’s exact version became a successful battlefield weapon. It belongs to a broader family of organ guns and volley guns developed in Europe before modern automatic weapons.