What human-shaped automaton did Leonardo da Vinci design for a Milanese festival around 1495?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a human-shaped automaton known as the mechanical knight around 1495.

The machine was probably created for a festival organized by Ludovico Sforza in Milan. Leonardo's drawings show an armored figure with a system of pulleys, cables, gears, and a rotating chest mechanism. The automaton may have been able to sit, stand, raise its arms, and move its head and jaw, although the exact range of movement remains uncertain.

The design was hidden for centuries in Leonardo's notebooks and was reconstructed in the modern era by studying the Codex Atlanticus. In 2002, roboticist Mark Rosheim built a working interpretation based on Leonardo's drawings and notes. The reconstruction showed that the design's mechanisms could produce several human-like movements.

The mechanical knight is not the same invention as Leonardo's mechanical lion, which was associated with a later presentation in France. Nor was the knight an autonomous robot in the modern electronic sense. It was a mechanically programmed automaton powered by human-wound or stored mechanical energy.