Leonardo da Vinci designed an organ gun with multiple barrels arranged to fire in sequence.
The organ gun was a wheeled artillery concept with several small gun barrels placed side by side. The arrangement resembled the pipes of a musical organ, which gave the weapon its name. The barrels could be loaded together and discharged in a coordinated volley or sequence.
Leonardo’s design aimed to increase the rate of fire and concentrate projectiles compared with a single-barrel gun. A carriage could also help move the weapon and position it on a battlefield. Like many of Leonardo’s military sketches, it was a proposal rather than a documented weapon that he personally built and used.
The organ gun is often called an early machine gun, but that description can mislead. Modern machine guns fire repeatedly from a single system using self-loading or powered operation. Leonardo’s device relied on multiple muzzle-loaded barrels and did not provide continuous automatic fire. It belongs to the family of volley guns and multi-barrel artillery.