PLATE VIII.

PISTOLS, etc.

BY ZDLOAGA OF MADRID.

Tiie reputation acquired by Spain for the manufacture of the leading implements of war is as catholic,in its sense of universality, as her faith. In our notice of Plate III. the celebrity of her Bilboa blades andToledo rapiers was duly set forth, in the present article we propose to notice her achievements in the pro-duction of fire-arms.

From Sir Samuel Rush Merrick’s work on Ancient Armour we learn, that as early as a.d. 1325 theMoors had attained a perfect command over the employment of the renowned “ Greek fireunder whichterm there can be little doubt that a species of gunpowder was included by the middle-age writers, as wellas the ordinary balls of inextinguishable fire. At the sieges of Baza, Martos, Algesira, and Tarifa, Ismaelemployed it at that period; and it appears that machines similar to those he is recorded to have used wereimmediately known to the Spaniards, and designated by them “ dolia ignivoma,” or “ fire-flashing vessels.These instruments of discord were used in Italy in 1351, in England in the reign of Edward III. , and inFrance at the same time,—being spoken of in that country as “ gunnse.”

The limits of the present notice will not permit us to trace the minute shades of difference between theconstruction and orders of precedence of bombardons, periers, cannons royal, serpentine and bastard, culvenns,sacars, and minions, pedreros, pattereroes, &c., still less the peculiarities of those varieties of artilleiywhich were manufactured exclusively in Spain .

It was towards the middle of the succeeding century that portable fire-arms appear to have beenintroduced throughout Europe . According to Billius, a learned Milanese, who lived at that period, hand-guns were first used at the siege of Lucca in 1430. He describes the Lucchesi as having carried in theirhands a club, a cubit and a half long, to which were affixed iron barrels. These they filled with sulphur andnitre, and by the power of fire, iron balls were thus ejected. In an entry of a roll of purchases made for

Holy Island the following item occurs,* “a.d. 1446, Bought ii. hand gunnes de ere.” From whence we

learn that they were occasionally made of brass. The rude hand-gun was soon refined into the harquebuse,a weapon the invention of which is generally ascribed to the Italians . The chief improvements effected werethe additions, of a proper stock, bent and formed at the end so as to fit to the shoulder, and of what wascalled the serpentine, a species of cock with a spring, which, on being released by a trigger, descended into

a pan of priming, carrying with it the end of the match, and thus leaving both hands free to steady the aim.

In 1585 these harquebuses had become so common in Spain , not only for the uses of war, but for thepurposes of sporting, as to have given occasion for the publication of an order in Council restraining theclergy from making use of tliem.f The harquebuses were soon divided into two kinds, the long and short,the latter being called demi-hags. The former were soon so far lengthened as to require fork-rests to steady

the gun upon; the latter were made smaller and smaller until they finally gave occasion to the origin ofpistols. This latter variety of arms is stated to have been invented at Pistoia in Tuscany, by Camillo Vitelli .

* Bosbroke, II. 9H.

t “ Arclmbusio etiam dum iter faciunt aut in venationibus ne utantur clerici.”-DucARGE, Gloss. I. 362, ed. Bened.