Cast bronze cannon with trunnions
Cañón de bronce fundido en una pieza con muñones
- Date
- c. 1450-1500 · confidence medium
- Place
- Burgundy and France (Charles VIII's artillery); bell-founders
- Credited to
- The Bureau brothers (France); Flemish and German bell-founders
- Field
- Conflict
What it is
A bronze artillery piece cast in a single pour, with trunnions for aiming and a wheeled carriage, replacing wrought-iron stave bombards. Charles VIII's mobile artillery brought down the medieval walls of Italy in 1494.
The cheap cast-iron cannon, developed in Sussex around 1543, complemented bronze and cut the cost of naval artillery.
What it led to
- Bastion fortification (the trace italienne) and military engineering
- The naval artillery of galleons and ships of the line
- The state monopoly on war and monarchical centralisation
- Demand for copper and tin that spurred mining (the Fuggers)
Built on
- Wrought-iron bombard
- Bell founding
- Corned (granulated) gunpowder
Made possible
- Bastion fort (trace italienne)c. 1480-1530
- Galleonc. 1530-1550
- Ship of the line1637-1655
- Gribeauval system of standardised artillery1765
- Dahlgren gunc. 1850-1861
- Bastioned fortress
- English cast-iron cannon (1543)