Leonardo da Vinci designed a parachute in 1485 that could allow a person to descend safely from a height.
His drawing shows a pyramid-shaped canopy made from linen held open by a wooden frame. Leonardo wrote that a person could jump from any great height while protected by a structure about 12 braccia wide and 12 deep. A braccio was a historical Italian unit, so the exact modern dimensions depend on the conversion used.
Leonardo never tested the design, and it was not a practical parachute by modern standards because the rigid frame would have been extremely heavy. In 2000, British-Italian skydiver Adrian Nichols built and successfully tested a version based on Leonardo’s sketch, although he used a separate modern parachute for safety. The experiment showed that the concept could generate drag, but it did not prove that Leonardo’s original materials or construction would have been safe.