Leonardo da Vinci designed a robotic knight in Milan around 1495.
The machine was created for a court celebration organized for Ludovico Sforza. Leonardo’s surviving notes and drawings indicate that the armored figure could sit, stand, raise its arms, and move its head and jaw through an internal system of gears, cables, and pulleys.
The design is often called Leonardo’s robot, although “robot” is a modern term. The word was not coined until the 20th century, so Leonardo would have regarded the machine as an automaton or mechanical figure. There is no surviving original, and the exact extent of its movement remains uncertain.
In 2002, engineer Mark Rosheim built a reconstruction based on Leonardo’s drawings. The reconstruction demonstrated that the mechanism could produce several human-like motions. This does not establish that every reported performance occurred in 1495, but it supports the view that Leonardo’s design was mechanically plausible rather than purely imaginary.