What clockwork machine did Leonardo da Vinci design to reproduce the motion of a human figure?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical knight, a clockwork machine intended to reproduce human movements.

Leonardo created the design around 1495 while working in Milan for Ludovico Sforza. The machine was shaped like an armored medieval knight and used gears, cables, and pulleys to control motions such as sitting, standing, and moving its arms. It may have been intended for a court entertainment or a ceremonial display.

No original mechanical knight survives, and historians reconstruct its operation from Leonardo's sketches and notes. In 2002, roboticist Mark Rosheim built a working interpretation based on the surviving evidence. That reconstruction demonstrated that the design could produce several human-like movements.

The mechanical knight is often called Leonardo's robot, but the word robot was not used in Leonardo's era. The modern term comes from the Czech word robota and became popular in the 20th century.