Walter de Milemete

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Walter de Milemete

fl. 1300s

English scholar who created the first Western illustration of a firearm. The drawing, which depicts a small cannon for firing arrows, appeared in Walter's De officiis regnum (1326). Firearms had been used in the 1324 siege of the German town of Metz, and in 1326 a Florentine document mentioned a bronze gun capable of firing iron balls.