What humanoid automaton did Leonardo da Vinci design for a Milan court festival?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical knight for a Milan court festival.

The automaton was created around 1495 for a pageant organized by Ludovico Sforza, the ruler of Milan. Its internal system of gears, cables, and pulleys was intended to make the armored figure sit, stand, raise its visor, and move its arms.

Leonardo’s original machine disappeared, but researchers reconstructed versions from his surviving anatomical and mechanical drawings. One modern reconstruction was built in 2002 by Mark Rosheim, who studied Leonardo’s notebooks and produced a working model.

The knight was not a modern robot with electronic control or artificial intelligence. It was a mechanical automaton, meaning that programmed physical parts generated its movements.