Annibal was a 74-gun ship of the line of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She was designed by Jacques-Noël Sané, and was one of the earliest of his works. She was built at Brest in 1778.

Jacques-Noël Sané was a French naval engineer. He was the creator of standardised designs for ships of the line and frigates fielded by the French Navy in the 1780s, which served during the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars and in some cases remained in service into the 1860s. Captured ships of his design were commissioned in the Royal Navy and even copied.