Leonardo da Vinci sketched an organ gun, a multi-barrel weapon with many tubes arranged together and fired in sequence.
The design is commonly associated with Leonardo’s military notebooks and is sometimes called a multi-barrel cannon. Its rows of barrels were intended to increase the rate of fire compared with a single gun, while the carriage allowed the weapon to be positioned on the battlefield.
The name “organ gun” comes from the visual resemblance between its parallel barrels and the pipes of a musical organ. It was not an automatic firearm in the modern sense; each barrel still required loading and ignition, and historical accounts do not establish that Leonardo’s version was deployed.
Leonardo’s military designs often combined existing weapon technology with improved arrangements, mobility, or firing patterns. The organ gun is a clear example of that practical engineering approach.