What human-shaped machine is associated with Leonardo da Vinci’s 1495 designs?

A robot knight is the human-shaped machine associated with Leonardo da Vinci’s designs from 1495.

Leonardo’s notes and drawings for a mechanical knight date to about 1495, during his time in Milan under the patronage of Ludovico Sforza. The machine was designed to sit, stand, raise its arms, and move its head and jaw through cables and pulley-driven mechanisms inside an armored shell.

The surviving drawings do not prove that Leonardo completed the machine, although he may have constructed a demonstration device. In 2002, robotics expert Mark Rosheim built a working interpretation based on Leonardo’s sketches. The reconstruction showed that several proposed movements could be produced with Renaissance mechanical technology.

Calling it a robot is a modern description. Leonardo’s machine had no electronics, software, or autonomous intelligence. It was an automaton: a mechanically programmed figure intended to demonstrate movement and engineering ingenuity.