Chapter summary:
There is substantial evidence that an illustration of a blast furnace in the Nung Shu was copied by Taccola and Alberti and built in Northern Italy. For the first time, Europeans had the capacity to produce sufficient quantities of high quality iron and steel to make reliable modern firearms. Gunpowder, muskets and cannon were all Chinese inventions. Gunpowder was first made in the Tang dynasty and improved in the Song. The development of gunpowder in China went hand in hand with development of firearms.
During the Northern Song (960-1127), Emperor Zhanzon set up China’s first arms factory employing some forty thousand workers. Three different types of gunpowder were perfected – one for cannon, another for fireballs and another for poisoned smoke bombs. Flame throwers, exploding mortar bombs, rockets and gunpowder missiles were all in use by 1264. By Zheng He’s era, China had acquired centuries of experience in producing all manner of gunpowder weapons at that time unknown to Europeans.
It seems to me reasonable to assume that Fontana gained his knowledge of many gunpowder weapons from Zheng He’s gunners. Taccola provides corroborative evidence. He introduced Europe to a Chinese innovation from the early 1400s – a derivation of arsenic to improve the power of gunpowder.
Florentines now had steel and gunpowder to enable them to make bombards and cannons, which di Giorgio quickly put to good use. In the 1430’s and 1440’s, the gunpowder weapons drawn by Fontana and Taccola had not yet been “invented.” However, that changed over the next 40 years, as we know from the records of Francesco di Giorgio regarding the siege of Castellina in August, 1478.
Taccola and di Giorgio’s drawings are accompanied by the weapons that were fired – exploding missiles and powder kegs. The Chinese had dozens of illustrations of exploding missiles and powder kegs in the Huo Lung Chung (HLC) (the Fire Drake Artillery Manual) published c 1421; and in the Wu Ching Tsung Yao (WCTY) a Sung dynasty manual of 1044.
An interesting comparison between di Giorgio’s designs and the Chinese gunpowder cannon may be seen in the curious bulbous shapes of both. Previously, the Chinese had not yet mastered how to make steel strong enough to cope with the expansion of gas in the explosion chamber once the gunpowder was ignited. The bulbous shape allowed for thicker metal than in the barrel. By 1400, the early Ming era, this problem had been solved, enabling them to produce “thousand ball thunder cannon,” which di Giorgio copied in his later drawings. Di Giorgio’s cannons have beautiful embellishments, however, remove the embellishments, and what remains is the shape of Chinese cannons.
Gunpowder, steel, cannon and explosive shells were not the only weapons that Taccola, di Giorgio and Fontana copied from the Chinese. Within a generation after the Chinese visit of 1434, Florentines were using a variety of Chinese methods to smelt iron and were using Chinese-designed gunpowder to produce exploding shells from cannons identical in design to their Chinese models.
Further reading:
Filarete’s Description of a Fifteenth Century Italian Iron Smelter at Ferriere:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3100922
Asian Influences on European Metallurgy:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3101258
The Early Development of Firearms in China:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/225875
An Unidentified Work by Giovanni da ‘Fontana: Liber de omnibus rebus naturalibus:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/224569
Science and Civilisation in China. Volume V: Chemistry and Chemical Technology, Part 9: Textile Technology: Spinning and Reeling:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/233830
Comments on Writings Concerning Chinese Sorghums:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2717914
Science and Civilisation in China Vol.3 Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2753049
Black Powder Solid Propellants:
http://www.astronautix.com/articles/blalants.htm
History of Rocketry, Chapter 1. Ancient Times Through to the 17th Century:
http://www.spaceline.org/history/1.html
The Enciphered Manuscripts of Giovanni Fontana:
http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/philipneal_vms/fontana.html
Power Patronage and the Authorship of Ars: From Mechanical Know-How to mechanical Knowledge in the last Scribal Age:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/235824
Giovanni Fontana:
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/genscheda.asp?appl=LIR&xsl=slideshow&lingua=ENG&chiave=101014
