Leonardo da Vinci sketched an organ gun with three parallel rows of gun barrels.
The weapon, often called a “33-barrelled organ,” arranged many small cannons in a frame. Its name comes from the visual resemblance to the pipes of a musical organ. The arrangement was intended to increase the rate of fire compared with a single muzzle-loading cannon.
Leonardo’s design included three rows, each containing eleven barrels, for a total of thirty-three. The frame could be repositioned between volleys, allowing one row to be fired while the others were prepared.
The organ gun was not a machine gun in the modern sense. Each barrel still required separate loading and ignition, and the weapon’s practical battlefield performance is uncertain. It belongs to the family of volley guns, which used multiple barrels to deliver concentrated fire.