Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical knight, an armored human-shaped machine operated by internal mechanical parts.
Leonardo produced the design around 1495 while working in Milan for Ludovico Sforza. The machine was intended to sit or stand inside a suit of armor and use cables, pulleys, and levers to imitate human actions. Reconstructions suggest it could move its arms, jaw, and head when operated by a person turning handles.
The machine is often called Leonardo’s robot, but robot is a modern term that did not exist in Renaissance Italy. It was an automaton: a mechanically operated figure designed to perform movements without an ordinary human body inside it. The surviving evidence comes from Leonardo’s notes and drawings rather than a surviving original.
In 2002, engineer Mark Rosheim built a working reconstruction based on Leonardo’s sketches. That reconstruction helped show that the design was mechanically coherent, although it does not prove that Leonardo’s original machine was completed exactly as planned.