Who invented the black powder pistol?

Answer 1

Nobody knows. There were a lot of small arms invented during a period of experimentation in the 15th century. If we don't consider any matchlock a true pistol (since they are difficult and somewhat impractical to use as pistols) we can start with the wheellock, which was invented in the early 1500's. It's believed that it was invented in Germany, although Leonardo da vinci created drawings of a similar mechanism around the time that the wheellock was developed, which suggests that da Vinci could potentially have been the inventor himself. We really don't know for sure.