What Leonardo da Vinci invention used a pyramid-shaped linen canopy to imitate a parachute?

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

Leonardo sketched the design around 1485 in the Codex Atlanticus. His notes described a sealed linen pyramid supported by wooden poles, measuring about 7.2 metres on each side and 7.2 metres high. The concept relied on air resistance, the same basic physical principle used by modern parachutes.

Leonardo did not record a successful test, and the design was probably too rigid and heavy for practical use. For centuries, it remained an ingenious theoretical design rather than a working aircraft accessory.

The parachute is often grouped with Leonardo’s flying-machine studies, but it was intended for controlled descent, not powered flight. In 2000, British skydiver Adrian Nicholas tested a modern reconstruction based on Leonardo’s measurements and landed safely after releasing it at altitude.