What human-shaped machine did Leonardo da Vinci design for a Milanese pageant?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a robotic knight for a Milanese pageant.

Leonardo prepared the machine around 1495 while working for Ludovico Sforza in Milan. It was built inside a suit of medieval armor and used cables, pulleys, and gears to imitate human movements. The mechanism could reportedly sit, stand, move its arms, and lift its visor or helmet.

The design is known from Leonardo’s anatomical and mechanical notes rather than from a surviving original machine. In 2002, roboticist Mark Rosheim constructed a working interpretation based on Leonardo’s drawings. That reconstruction helped demonstrate that the concept was mechanically plausible, though it cannot prove every detail of the lost original.

The knight is often called Leonardo’s robot because it performed prearranged movements. It was not an autonomous robot in the modern sense: it had no electronic controller, sensors, or artificial intelligence.