Leonardo da Vinci designed a pyramidal parachute in 1485 to help a person descend safely from the sky.
His drawing shows a rigid wooden frame covered with linen, forming a pyramid roughly 7.2 metres high and equally wide at its base. Leonardo proposed that a person could jump from a height while suspended beneath this canopy. The design appeared in the Codex Atlanticus, a large collection of his notes and drawings.
Leonardo’s parachute was not built during his lifetime, and he did not test it. Its importance lies in showing that controlled descent could be approached as an engineering problem involving air resistance, surface area, and structural support. Modern parachutes use flexible fabric, suspension lines, and harnesses rather than a large rigid frame.
A common mix-up is calling Leonardo’s design the first practical parachute. The first recorded successful jump with a parachute is generally associated with André-Jacques Garnerin in 1797, more than three centuries later.