Ildebrando Zacchini was a painter, inventor, and travelling circus owner. Inspired by the works of Jules Verne

Jules Verne

Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

, Zacchini came up with an idea for a human cannonball

Human cannonball

The human cannonball is a performance in which a person is ejected from a specially designed cannon. The impetus is provided not by gunpowder, but by either a spring or jet of compressed air...

 act. Instead of explosives, Zacchini's human-firing cannon used compressed air, and he first tested it on his son Hugo Zacchini

Hugo Zacchini

Hugo Zacchini was the first human cannonball. His father Ildebrando Zacchini invented the compressed-air cannon used to propel humans in circus acts....

. The idea for the cannonball act was initially proposed to the Italian government as a military maneuver

Maneuver

Maneuver, manoeuvre may be a synonym for strategy or tactic. It is the manipulation of a situation in order to gain some advantage.- Military or naval movement :* Military exercise...

 to be used in conjunction with parachute

Parachute

A parachute is a device used to slow the motion of an object through an atmosphere by creating drag, or in the case of ram-air parachutes, aerodynamic lift. Parachutes are usually made out of light, strong cloth, originally silk, now most commonly nylon...

s; when the proposal was rejected Zacchini looked to use the technique as part of an entertainment act.

External links

• Find A Grave