Leonardo da Vinci’s mechanical knight reportedly appeared in Milan in 1495.
Leonardo designed the humanoid automaton while working for Ludovico Sforza, the Duke of Milan. It was probably created for a court celebration connected with the wedding of Sforza’s nephew Gian Galeazzo Sforza and Isabella of Aragon, although the exact event is not completely certain.
The machine was placed inside a suit of German-Italian armor and could perform movements such as sitting, standing, raising its visor, and moving its arms. Cables, pulleys, gears, and a control system inside the armor supplied the motion. Leonardo’s anatomical studies likely helped him arrange the mechanism in a human-like form.
No original robot survives. In the twentieth century, engineer and historian Mark Rosheim reconstructed the design from Leonardo’s drawings and notes. The machine is often called Leonardo’s robot, but it was an automaton rather than an artificial-intelligence system or a programmable modern robot.