Italian firesteel flints and gunflint workshop traces

Abstract

The oldest Italian wheel-lock on an arquebuse was cited in 1547, in a document where also a ‘flint-lock’ gun is mentioned, probably equipped with an early snaphaunce-like mechanism. With the exception of the wheel-lock, the gunflints used in these earliest muskets were probably homemade (or handcrafted on a small scale). Only since the end of the 17th century, the Venetian Republic infantry seems to have been the first to adopt military muskets equipped with flintlocks, so triggering the developement of a standardized manufacture of gunflints in the Lessini Mountains (in the Verona hinterland; fig. 1), being the largest flint/chert outcrops in northern Italy. However, by the end of the 18th century, Verona was occupied by French troops. And the knappers of military gunflints from Central France were the monopolist exporters up to the end of the 18th century. Notwithstanding this potential competition, during the Napoleonic occupation of the Venetian region (1799-1815), nearly 200.000 gunflints were exported daily from Verona. This lasted up to the year 1817 when the local gunflint wholesaler complained to the Austrian Commission that their recent suspension of orders would cause the unemployment of 500 local gunflint knappers. Later, by 1830-40, most of the European armies adopted the percussion cap ignition system (this chemical system works without gunflints), so causing a sudden decline in gunflint production. Nevertheless, still in 1886, large amounts of gunflints, packed in baskets (each one containing 2.000-3.000 pieces) were exported from Verona to the Adriatic ports (and also to Tyrol), probably for a use as fire-flints (‘strike-a-lights’). The present paper describes the rise and fall of Veronese gunflint production during 200 years, also in order to promote a better documentation of Veronese gunflint distribution into other European countries.