Leonardo da Vinci sketched an organ gun, a multiple-barrel weapon arranged to fire rapid volleys.
The design used several parallel gun barrels mounted in rows or a fan-like arrangement. The name comes from the resemblance between the grouped barrels and the pipes of a musical organ. By distributing many small artillery pieces across a frame, the weapon could deliver a concentrated burst rather than relying on a single barrel.
Leonardo’s drawing is often described as an early machine gun, but that label can mislead. The mechanism was not a modern automatic firearm: the barrels still required separate loading and ignition, and the design depended on coordinated manual operation. It is better understood as a volley gun or organ gun.
Leonardo produced many military engineering studies for powerful patrons in Renaissance Italy. His notebooks contain proposals for artillery, fortifications, bridges, and other battlefield equipment, though surviving sketches do not establish that every design was constructed.