Leonardo da Vinci drew an organ gun, a repeating artillery design with multiple gun barrels.
An organ gun is a firearm or artillery piece made from several barrels arranged in parallel or in a cluster. Leonardo’s version placed many small cannons on a frame so they could be fired in sequence or in a concentrated volley. The arrangement resembled the pipes of a musical organ, which explains the name.
Leonardo studied the design as part of his military work in the late 15th century. Multiple barrels could give soldiers a rapid succession of shots, potentially compensating for the slow reloading of individual muzzle-loading weapons. The system still required substantial labor and careful handling of gunpowder.
The organ gun was not a machine gun in the modern sense. It lacked automatic loading and continuous fire, and each barrel had to be prepared separately. Leonardo’s drawing belongs to a broader history of volley guns and volley-fire artillery rather than to modern automatic weapons.