Leonardo da Vinci designed a robot knight powered by internal gears and levers.
The design was created around 1495 for a pageant in Milan sponsored by Ludovico Sforza. Leonardo’s notes and sketches indicate a suit of armor containing a mechanical system capable of movements such as sitting, standing, and moving its arms. The figure was intended as theatrical entertainment rather than an autonomous machine in the modern sense.
No original robot knight survives, and the exact performance of the historical device remains uncertain. Engineers have built reconstructions using Leonardo’s drawings and related anatomical studies, helping demonstrate how the proposed mechanisms may have worked.
Calling it a robot is a modern description. Leonardo did not have the modern category of robotics, but the armored automaton is widely recognized as an early humanoid machine concept.