Leonardo da Vinci's 1485 design was intended to let a person descend safely using a parachute.
His drawing shows a pyramid-shaped frame covered with linen, with the person suspended below it. Leonardo proposed that a structure about 7.2 metres high and wide could support a person during a descent. The design appears in the Codex Atlanticus, a major collection of his engineering drawings.
Leonardo did not build or test the device, so it was a theoretical design rather than a working parachute. Its importance comes from the way it applies controlled air resistance to a practical safety problem. Modern parachutes use flexible canopies rather than a rigid pyramid, but they rely on the same broad principle: drag slows a falling body.
A common mix-up is calling the design a glider. A glider is intended for sustained forward flight, whereas Leonardo's parachute was designed for vertical descent. In 2000, British skydiver Adrian Nicholas tested a full-scale replica and reported that it flew successfully, although he used a modern parachute for the landing.