This book, in the making for the last 20 years, is really two books in one:PART I of this book is about the only surviving individual gun that can be documented to Leonardo da Vinci by its unique "instant ignition" AUTOMATIC-OPENING PAN COVER, making it one of the very few of his inventions that were actually made during his lifetime.
PART II of the book is about all of the guns used by Columbus when he introduced firearms into the New World. Why bring in Columbus? Because this same only surviving Da Vinci gun is also decorated with gold & silver heraldic adornments and allegorical sculptures that explain its being a gift to Christopher Columbus by Queen Isabella in 1493.
In sum, this only surviving individual gun that can be documented to da Vinci, is also the one and only surviving gun that can be documented to Christopher Columbus as well.
Da Vinci (1452 - 1519) has long been credited with inventing the wheellock which came into use during his lifetime (early 1500s) and which was illustrated in his CODEX ATLANTICUS. But, almost a decade earlier than that, da Vinci solved the KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY problem by designing a matchlock with an Automatic-Opening Pan Cover as depicted in his long-lost and recently re-discovered MADRID CODICES (1490-1491), Volume I, Folio 18 v. [2] Although known to have once existed in the 17th Century and cataloged in the Bibliotec National de Madrid, the actual two volumes had vanished from the library shelves and despite several massive searches, were lost for over 200 years. It was assumed they were stolen by French troops during the Napoleonic Wars. But, in 1967 they were accidentally rediscovered by an American musicologist looking for two Medieval song books.
Today there is only one sole surviving gun which has this lock ignition mechanism (the Da Vinci-Columbus gun), and this gun is not just similar to the Automatic-Opening Pan Cover as depicted in the MADRID CODICES, but functions exactly the same.
With its gold and silver decorations, and its chiseled steel sculptural décor, this gun is just as much a work of art as it is a weapon of war. Moreover, in addition to the Automatic-Opening Pan Cover Mechanism having been designed by Da Vinci, much of the gun's artistic décor seems to have his fingerprints all over it. For example, as will be seen below, there are six dragons adorning the gun, and these look to be distinctively Da Vinci-style dragons. Not every renaissance artist made their dragons the same way. Da Vinci's dragons were quite different from his contemporaries, such as Michelangelo's or Albrecht Durer's dragons (as will be shown later).
While it is impossible to know after 500+ years how much of the gun could be attributed to Da Vinci, his students or apprentices, it does seem like an improbable coincidence that the one and only known gun with Da Vinci's unique lock mechanism also is adorned with distinctive and sophisticated artistry that appears in Da Vinci's other works of art.
Finally, it will be seen that the artistic and heraldic décor on the gun actually celebrates two great Spanish victories:The Conquest of Granada (1492), and
The Conquest of the Sea of Darkness - Discovery of the New World (1492).
As will be seen, Columbus did have guns on his First Voyage, but none have survived to be identified or documented as such. Notwithstanding that this Da Vinci/Columbus Gun is from the Second Voyage, since it is the only surviving gun that can be identified and documented to Christopher Columbus, that appears to make it the oldest known American and/or New World gun.
