Amongst the works he composed for the Society were a cantata, Il genio di Trieste (The Spirit of Trieste) and a comédie en vaudeville, La festa dell'archibugio (The Arquebus Festival).
Arquebuses were introduced to Japan in 1543 by Portuguese traders, who landed by accident on Tanegashima, an island south of Kyūshū in the region controlled by the Shimazu clan.
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Arquebuses were carried by some of the soldiers of Hernán Cortés in his conquest of Mexico in the 1520s, and arquebuses played an important role in the victories of Cristóvão da Gama's small and outnumbered army in his 1541–42 campaign in Ethiopia.
He then reduced the number of the mercenary Ottoman arquebusiers to 200, and relying on his own forces retired to Emfraz near Lake Tana for the coming rainy season.
An inventory of 8 January 1548 lists the English armaments on the island as; one culverin; one demi-culverin; 3 iron sakers; a brass saker; 2 iron falcons; 3 brass falcons; 4 fowlers; 2 port pieces; 14 bases; 90 arquebuses, 2 chests of bows; 50 pikes; and 40 bills.
He obtained a pyrrhic victory at Pontedera on 11 June 1554, but his army could not receive help from the ships of his brother Leone (who had been killed by an arquebus shot near Castiglione della Pescaia) and he was forced to retreat to Pistoia.
After the fleet was dispersed by a storm off Flamborough Head on 16 January, the damaged Swallow, Falcon, and Jerfalcon were left at Tynemouth, and the rest of the fleet passed Bamborough Castle to Berwick upon Tweed, where 600 hand gunners were embarked.