Leonardo continued the work on his military machines for, although he was having some success painting Madonnas for private homes and had even received a commission from the King of Portugal for a tapestry design, he still wanted official recognition for his inventions from Lorenzo de’ Medici.
During these weeks late in the year of 1479, Leonardo conceived many ingenious devices to wage war. Besides the small artillery piece, he designed a bombard, or rock-throwing cannon, which did not recoil when it was fired. This was followed by a light gun arranged in three tiers of barrels, mounted so that while one tier was fired, the second was being loaded and the third was cooling (a forerunner of the modern machine gun). Another was a device to repel enemy ladders. It consisted of a horizontal beam laid parallel to the top of a fortress wall; the beam could be pushed outward by one man or several men using a system of pulleys.
Leonardo’s design for a machine gun. It had thirty-three barrels in three banks of eleven each. While one bank was fired, one cooled and the other was reloaded.
Unfortunately for Leonardo, just as he was ready to show these inventions to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the last fortress outside Florence surrendered and a three-month truce followed. Lorenzo himself went to Naples and persuaded King Ferdinand to withdraw from the war. By 1480, peace returned once again to Florence.
As for the Medicis, military machines no longer interested them. Greatly disappointed at not having his inventions used—or even looked at—Leonardo began to search about for new fields of creative activity.
4
Years Of Frustration
The old monk spread the papers out before him on the table.
“Master Leonardo,” he said, “these are the terms of the commission. We at the monastery wish to have an altarpiece painted for our chapel. Your father has recommended you, and, as you know, he is our lawyer. Of course your reputation has already reached our ears, and we are satisfied in our choice.”