Bombardier stilettos

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by broadaxe

My idea regarding the figures & intervals on the blade: since all the examples brought here show numbers from 1 to 120, I think they stand for Venetian military ounces. Venice had a military weight system, different from the civil sustem.

As for using the stiletto for elevation measure - sorry, I don't think so. First, one must use additional tools to the the stiletto and the whole procedure is cumbersome. Second, for elevation taking & aiming there was a very simple yet innovative, precise instrument: the gunner's quadrant.
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/museum/esim.asp?c=100379
http://www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/geometry/fig11m.htm

A very good little book Artillery Trough the Ages can be found entirely here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20483...-h/20483-h.htm

That makes good sense, and as I think was mentioned, many of these known seem to have the numbering considerably affected by the corrosive and abrasive effects of presumably the powder. Thank you for the great links,
and I can see that as an elevation tool, these single scales would not be able to provide the geometric latitude of adjustable quadrant and graduated arc.

So these geometric instruments, quadrants, that were used c.1530's were seemingly pretty well established for artillery gunners.......any information on what they used in those days to guage the charge and measure the powder? We know that by 1661, the gunners stiletto's had the numeric scales on them....maybe the function of measuring simply was a ruler or graduated stick?

It would seem that these marked stilettos were probably genuinely used for the purpose suggested, of measuring powder, and it was suggested that they were possibly a mark of specialist elite, or possibly rank (chief cannonneer). Perhaps, the spurious marking of stilettos resulted because of these effectively outlawed weapons, thus the numbers of them known. Apparantly the fusetti "'gunners stiletto') was so well known it was called colloquially 'un centoventi' (Ital.=one hundred twenty) for the high number on the scale on them.

All the best,
Jim