Leonardo da Vinci’s human-shaped machine is known as Leonardo’s mechanical knight.
Leonardo designed the automaton around 1495 while working in Milan for Ludovico Sforza. The machine was dressed in armor and operated by a system of pulleys, cables, gears, and connecting rods. It could reportedly sit, stand, move its arms, and move its jaw, although the exact abilities of the original are not fully documented.
The knight may have been intended for a court entertainment or pageant. It was not a robot in the modern electronic sense: it had no electricity, computer, or programmable software. Its movements came from mechanical components powered by a person or by stored energy.
The original machine has not survived. In 2002, roboticist Mark Rosheim built a full-scale working interpretation from Leonardo’s drawings and related notes. The project showed that the design’s mechanical principles were plausible, while also highlighting how much reconstruction is required when Leonardo’s sketches omit construction details.