Leonardo da Vinci designed a parachute to let a person descend safely from a great height.
His 1485 notebook sketch shows a pyramid-shaped canopy made from linen, supported by a wooden frame. Leonardo wrote that a person could jump from a height while protected by a structure about 12 braccia wide and 12 braccia deep. A braccio was a historical Italian unit whose exact length varied, so modern conversions are approximate.
The design was not a practical modern parachute: its rigid pyramid frame would have made it heavy and difficult to control. Nevertheless, it shows Leonardo reasoning about air resistance and the need to spread a falling person’s weight over a large surface. In 2000, British adventurer Adrian Nicholas built and tested a modified version, reporting a stable descent before using a conventional parachute for landing.
Leonardo’s parachute is not the same as his flying-machine studies. A parachute is designed for controlled descent, not powered or sustained flight.