What Leonardo da Vinci invention is a pyramid-shaped parachute designed to slow a person's fall?

Leonardo da Vinci's pyramid-shaped parachute was designed to slow a person's fall.

Leonardo sketched the parachute around 1485 in the Codex Atlanticus. His design used a wooden pyramid frame about 7.2 metres wide and 7.2 metres high, covered with linen cloth. Unlike a modern parachute, it had a rigid frame rather than a flexible canopy.

The drawing shows Leonardo reasoning from air resistance: a large surface moving through the air could oppose gravity and allow a person to descend safely. He did not record a full-scale test, and the parachute was never known to have been built during his lifetime.

People sometimes call the design the first parachute, but that depends on the definition. It was an early documented parachute concept, not a practical modern parachute. In 2000, British skydiver Adrian Nicholas tested a reconstruction based on Leonardo's measurements and reported that it worked, although he landed with a modern parachute for safety.