#580 Lombard's Cannon

 Fun Fact #580

Lombard’s Cannon

 Usually around the Superbowl everyone talks about The Lombardi Trophy, but did you know there’s a much older Lombardi based around throwing balls. However, that Lombard was a prize you didn't want to catch. 

While Smooth-Bore Cannons had been around since the start of the 12th Century Renaissance, it took until 1387AD to be first recorded in Europe. Interestingly it wasn’t a major power that first brought these powerful weapons to The Mediterranean, but rather the region home to the famous bankers and former rulers of Northern Italy called “The Lombards” resulting in the smoothbore cannons being nicknamed “The Lombard”. Once in Europe advancements soon took place until a total of 4 cannon types, and 9 shot types were invented by 1700AD.  

In honor of The Lombardi Trophy, this week we will do a deep dive into this original Lombard Game of Ball with the different variants –like the Mortar– and types of Shot such as Grapeshot, Hotshot, and SpiderShot. Thank you for reading and please have a phenomenal day. . . even though the Chiefs soundly lost (lol).

An official Photo of The Lombard Gate, and the Lombard named “The Abrigado” (The Offended) which was claimed as a war prize from The Philippines during The Spanish-American War and is now on display in San Francisco. There is another Cannon on the other side of the street from this Photo taken from Cuba. . . Which holds an interesting name. Apparently The US Military had a fine tradition of “Liberating” Lombards from opposing forces and naming them after things that would be considered insulting to the people the cannon was confiscated from.