Orbán (ironmaster)

Orbán, also known as Urban, was a fifteenth-century iron founder and engineer from Brassó in Transylvania, then part of the Kingdom of Hungary and today Brașov in Romania. He is remembered for casting very large siege artillery, notably the bronze gun called the Basilic, for the Ottoman siege of Constantinople in 1453. He first offered his services to the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI in 1452, but the Byzantines could not pay his salary or supply the metal such a gun required, so he went to Sultan Mehmed II, who supplied funds and materials. Orbán built the giant gun in about three months at Adrianople, and sixty oxen dragged it to the city, where he also made smaller cannons for the besiegers. Sources differ on his origin, with most modern authors calling him Hungarian and some suggesting German or Wallachian roots. He is said to have died in 1453 when one of his guns burst during the siege.