Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/532

386 386 WAR OF GRANADA. PART I. Of the kinds of aiumuni- tion. place. The largest of the lombards, as the heavy ordnance was called, are about twelve feet in length, consisting of iron bars two inches in breadth, held together by bolts and rings of the same metal. These were firmly attached to their carriages, in- capable either of horizontal or vertical movement. It was this clumsiness of construction, which led Machiavelli, some thirty years after, to doubt the expediency of bringing cannon into field engage ments ; and he particularly recommends in his treatise on the Art of War, that the enemy's fire should be evaded, by intervals in the ranks being left open opposite to his cannon. " The balls thrown from these engines were some- times of iron, but more usually of marble. Several hundred of the latter have been picked up in the fields around Baza, many of which are fourteen inches in diameter, and weigh a hundred and seventy-five pounds. Yet this bulk, enormous as it appears, shows a considerable advance in the art since the beginning of the century, when the stone balls discharged, according to Zurita, at the siege of Balaguer, weighed not less than five hundred and fifty pounds. It was very long before the exact proportions requisite for obtaining the great- est effective force could be ascertained. ^^ The awkwardness with which their artillery was 14 Machiavelli, Arte della Guer- Constantinople, about thirty years ra, lib. 3. before this time, threw stone balls, 15 Mem. de la Acad, de Hist., which weighed above 600 pounds, torn. vi. Ilust. 6. The measure of the bore was According; to Gibbon, the cannon twelve palms. Decline and Fall used by Mahomet in the siege of of the Roman Empire, chap. 68,