Leonardo da Vinci designed the viola organista, a keyboard instrument intended to combine bowed-string sounds with keyboard control.
The instrument used a keyboard to activate rotating wheels or bowing elements against strings. Its purpose was to produce a sustained sound resembling that of bowed instruments while allowing a player to control the notes from a keyboard. Leonardo explored several versions of the idea in his notebooks during the Renaissance.
The viola organista was never built by Leonardo, and surviving drawings show an evolving concept rather than one finalized instrument. It is not simply a harpsichord: a harpsichord plucks strings, while Leonardo’s mechanism was designed to bow them. The name also does not mean that it was a conventional viola or a church organ. Modern builders have created playable reconstructions based on Leonardo’s drawings and related historical research.