Leonardo da Vinci designed a human-shaped machine known as the robot knight.
He developed the design around 1495 while working in Milan, probably for a court festival organized by Ludovico Sforza. The machine was enclosed in armor and used an internal system of pulleys, cables, and levers. According to reconstructions based on Leonardo’s drawings, the mechanism could sit, stand, raise its arms, and move its head and jaw.
Leonardo did not call it a robot; that word was coined much later. The modern name reflects its programmable-looking mechanical actions, while the historical object was an automaton or mechanical knight. The original device has not survived, but a full-scale reconstruction was built and displayed in 2002 by Mark Rosheim.
The design is important because it shows Leonardo applying anatomical observation to mechanics. He treated the body’s joints and muscles as models for an engineered moving system.