Leonardo da Vinci sketched a pyramid-shaped parachute as an emergency escape device.
His design appears in the Codex Atlanticus and consists of a cloth canopy supported by a wooden frame. Leonardo reasoned that a sufficiently large canopy could create enough air resistance to slow a person’s descent. The famous drawing is usually dated to around 1485, making it centuries earlier than practical parachuting.
The design is not the same as a modern soft parachute. Leonardo proposed a rigid, pyramid-like structure, and its weight and handling would have created serious difficulties. In 2000, British adventurer Adrian Nicholas tested a full-scale replica and reported that it descended successfully, although he cut away from it near the ground because landing was considered unsafe.
Leonardo’s idea is often linked with his broader studies of falling bodies and air resistance. It was a theoretical engineering proposal, not a device he is known to have built or used.