Description
This is page 2 of a 1660 work by C. Jacquinet (Gunsmiths and gunsmiths' ornaments). The full page is 18 x 16 centimetres in size. (The engraver seems to have made a mistake in the engraving of the page number.) Jacquinet, the French author and engraver, has crammed the gun ornaments onto the page so that some overlap slightly. The main item, in the centre, is the firing mechanism of a flintlock arquebus, a firearm that preceded the musket. An arquebus is smooth-bore – it has no rifling inside the barrel to cause a bullet to spin. As a result it would use spherical balls of metal rather than the elongated bullet shape that we recognise today. The firing mechanism works like this: The upright piece at left is the hammer, which includes a beak-like clamp with a screw. Into this clamp is fixed a piece of flint stone. When the trigger is released, the flint dashes against the frizzen (the upright piece of metal opposite), and a spark flashes down into the flash pan, a saucer containing gunpowder. The resulting explosion drives out a spherical ball that is jammed into the barrel (muzzle-loading). The arquebus decoration includes decorative faces and chubby-buttocked putti; flowers, fruit, scrolls, demons, a serpentine winged dragon and a dog. From the same document on the ornamentation of early muskets: .
