Another enormous cannon of Mahomet II. is still to be seen, at Negroponte, used at its capture by him from the Venetians in 1470. It defends the south side of Kastro, and is the most remarkable monument there.
There is now preserved in the Castle of San Juliao da Barra, ten miles from Lisbon, a gun that was captured at the siege of Diu, on the southern coast of Gujirat, in 1546, by a gallant Portugese cavalier, Dom John de Castro, which is destitute of the appliances named, and is of some remarkable metal. It bears upon it a Hindoo inscription, to the effect that it was cast in 1400. It is 20 feet 7 inches long; its external diameter at the centre is 6 feet 3 inches, and it discharges a ball one hundredweight.
In ancient times there was a fondness for bestowing upon these great guns some peculiar and dignified name. Twelve brass cannon cast in 1503 for Louis XII., being all of remarkable size, he named after the greatest peers of France. The Spaniards and Portuguese named them after certain saints; thus, when the Emperor Charles V. departed to attack Tunis, his bombardes were named after the Twelve Apostles.
In the Malaga there is still an 80-pounder of great antiquity named the "Terrible." Two very curious 60-pounders in the arsenal at Bremen are each named "The Messenger of Bad News;" an 80-pounder at Berlin, now in the Royal Arsenal, is named "The Thunderer;" at Milan there is a 70-pounder called the "Pimontelle" (or the little spicer); and another at Bois le Duc is styled _Le Diable_. A third in the Castle of St. Angelo at Rome, made of the nails which fastened the copper-plates composing the roof of the ancient Pantheon, bears upon it this inscription--
"_Ex clavis trabalibus porticus Agrippæ._"
Many of the cannon of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were remarkable for their beautiful and ornate character. A decorated Spanish cannon now preserved in the Paris Museum, is a fine example of these florid pieces, which were always cast of brass or mixed metal.
Diego Ufano, in his treatise on Artillery, published in 1614, shows us the metallic mixtures of copper, tin, and brass, and the proportions of these, then used for cast pieces of cannon.
The Russian arsenals are very rich in great and ancient cannon and others of historical interest.