What Leonardo da Vinci design resembles a modern parachute and was described as a pyramid-shaped canopy?

Leonardo da Vinci’s pyramidal parachute is the design that resembles a modern parachute and has a pyramid-shaped canopy.

Leonardo sketched the concept around 1485 in the Codex Atlanticus. His drawing shows a rigid-looking pyramidal frame covered with cloth, intended to slow a person’s descent from a height. The design was based on the principle that a broad surface moving through air creates resistance.

Leonardo did not record a documented test of the parachute, and the drawing is a design study rather than proof of a working aircraft. In 2000, British adventurer Adrian Nichols built and tested a replica based on Leonardo’s measurements. It descended successfully, although Nichols used a modern safety parachute before landing.

The design is often called a parachute, but it was not the same as the flexible, packable parachutes developed centuries later. Its unusual pyramid shape is the key feature distinguishing it from Leonardo’s other flying-machine studies.