What human-shaped machine did Leonardo da Vinci design as a mechanical knight?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a human-shaped automaton known as Leonardo’s robotic knight.

He created the design around 1495 for a pageant in Milan sponsored by Ludovico Sforza. The machine was concealed inside armor and used a system of cables, pulleys, and cranks. Reconstructions indicate that it could perform humanlike actions such as sitting, standing, moving its arms, and raising its visor.

The original device was lost, and historians know it mainly through Leonardo’s technical drawings and notes. In the 20th century, engineers and researchers reconstructed versions using the surviving evidence. These reconstructions helped demonstrate that the mechanism was more than a fanciful armor sketch.

The robotic knight was not an intelligent robot in the modern electronic sense. It had no computer, sensors, or autonomous reasoning. It was a mechanical automaton, meaning that programmed physical movements were produced by gears, cables, and stored or applied force.