Leonardo da Vinci designed the viola organista, a keyboard instrument using a mechanical bowing system to sustain notes.
Leonardo drew several versions of the instrument during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Pressing keys would move strings against rotating wheels or a continuous bow-like surface, producing sound in a way that combined keyboard control with the sustained tone of bowed instruments.
The viola organista was never completed by Leonardo as a known working instrument. Its design nevertheless shows his interest in translating familiar musical actions into mechanical systems. Unlike a conventional organ, it did not depend primarily on wind pipes; unlike a harpsichord, it was intended to sustain sound rather than pluck strings briefly.
Modern builders have constructed interpretations from Leonardo’s drawings, but those reconstructions are not identical to one definitive original model. The name refers to the concept and its hybrid relationship to violas and keyboard instruments.