Orban

For the Prime Minister of Hungary, see Viktor Orbán.

Urban, also known as Orban, was a Hungarian gunfounder who cast superguns for the Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453.

In 1452 he originally offered his services to the Byzantines, but emperor Constantine XI could not afford his high salary nor did he possess the materials necessary for constructing such a large siege cannon. Orban then left Constantinople and approached the Ottoman sultan Mehmed II who was in preparations to siege the city, claiming that his weapon could blast 'the walls of Babylon itself'. Given abundant funds and materials, the engineer built the gun within three months at Adrianople, from which it was dragged by sixty oxen to Constantinople. In the meantime, Orban also produced other cannon instrumental for the Turkish siege forces.^[1]

The bombard technology which mostly German technicians^[2] drew at first for the Hungarian Army had been established between 1400 and 1450 all over the Western Europe, transforming the siege warfare,^[3][4] with some pieces like the Dulle Griet, Mons Meg and the Pumhart von Steyr still extant from the period. Urban, along with an entire crew, had been most possibly killed during the siege when one of his superguns exploded, then not an unusual occurrence.^[5] Orban is described by a contemporary writer as a person of "Hungarian nationality and a very competent technician"^[6] A modern author speculated that "he could have been German too" based on other gun founders serving in the Royal Hungarian Court. ^[6]

References

1. ^ Runciman 1990, pp. 77–78
2. ^ The heirs of Archimedes: science and the art of war through the Age of Enlightenment, Brett D. Steele & Tamera Dorland, The MIT Press, 2005, p.128 & Roger Crowley, on In Our Time: Constantinople Siege & Fall, broadcast 2006
3. ^ Schmidtchen 1977a, pp. 153–157
4. ^ Schmidtchen 1977b, p. 226
5. ^ Schmidtchen 1977b, p. 237, Fn. 121
6. ^ ^{a b} The heirs of Archimedes: science and the art of war through the Age of Enlightenment, Brett D. Steele & Tamera Dorland, The MIT Press, 2005, p.128 [1]

References

• Nicolle, David (2000), Constantinople 1453: The End of Byzantium, Osprey Publishing, p. 13, ISBN 1-84176-091-9 
• Runciman, Steven (1990), The Fall of Constantinople: 1453, London: Cambridge University Press, pp. 77–78, ISBN 9780521398329 
• Schmidtchen, Volker (1977a), "Riesengeschütze des 15. Jahrhunderts. Technische Höchstleistungen ihrer Zeit", Technikgeschichte 44 (2): 153–173 
• Schmidtchen, Volker (1977b), "Riesengeschütze des 15. Jahrhunderts. Technische Höchstleistungen ihrer Zeit", Technikgeschichte 44 (3): 213–237 
• Crowley, Roger (2006), In Our Time: Constantinople Siege and Fall 

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