What is Leonardo da Vinci’s humanoid machine, designed for a Milanese court pageant, called?

Leonardo da Vinci’s humanoid machine for a Milanese court pageant is known as Leonardo’s robot.

Leonardo designed the mechanical knight around 1495 while working for Ludovico Sforza in Milan. Its internal system of cables, pulleys, and gears was intended to let the armored figure sit, stand, move its arms, and move its jaw. The machine was probably created for a court entertainment rather than for military use.

The original robot has not survived, and historians reconstruct its operation from Leonardo’s notebooks. In 2002, roboticist Mark Rosheim built a working version based on the drawings. That reconstruction helped demonstrate that the mechanism was mechanically plausible.

The machine is sometimes called Leonardo’s mechanical knight because it was dressed in armor. “Leonardo’s robot” is the standard modern title for the invention and distinguishes it from later fictional robots.