ita3107 – Leonardo Da Vinci – Spingarde with Mantlet

Leonardo Da Vinci (born in 1452, died in 1519) was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant people of the Renaissance and is widely regarded as one of the most talented people in history. He was not only an exceptionally talented painter, author of such masterpieces as “The Lady with an Ermine” or “The Last Supper”, but also an extremely prolific inventor and innovator.

One of his projects was the so-called Spingard. It was, in essence, a design of a field cannon on a two-wheeled tow truck, which had a wooden “artillery shield” on top to protect the gunner from enemy fire. Interestingly, the project also assumed the use of a mechanism that allows the barrel to rotate horizontally, without moving the entire trailer. Originally, it was assumed to fire from this machine with stone balls and various types of large arrows. Later, however – most likely – Leonardo tended to use shotguns. It is worth adding that the sketch of this gun is located in the so-called The Atlantic Codex, i.e. the collection of notes by Leonardo da Vinci from 1489-1492.

Among the several war machines designed by Leonardo, there are true pieces of artillery such as spingardes. The drawings on the 32r sheet of the Atlantic code hide ingenious insights for that age and represent two different versions of the spingardes. The first was mounted on a tripod and held with wooden pegs along a perforated ring; this solution allowed varying the height of the shot and was designed for spingardes of large dimensions.Our model is a reproduction of the second project: a spingardes with a rotated barrel that allowed the transport of a shed or mantlet, which was intended to protect the gunner.Originally designed for the launch of stones, spingardes were then used with the invention of gunpowder to launch bullets and darts of various types.In fact, some studies related to bullets and recipes of gunpowders are represented on Leonardo’s sheet.