German 16th Century Broadside: An Invitation to an Arms Competition, in or after 1501 woodcut, hand-colored, with movable type National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection, 1951

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This woodcut is one of only two surviving impressions of an invitation to a shooting contest in which crossbows and matchlock guns would be used. The mastery of such weapons helped ensure the security of the city. As advances in gunpowder improved the firepower of artillery in the fifteenth century, handguns also became more effective. Progress in metallurgy contributed to the introduction by German gunsmiths of matchlock guns, which soon proliferated.

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