What Leonardo da Vinci machine used a rotating drum to wind thread?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a spinning machine that used mechanical motion to wind and process thread.

Textile production was a major industry in Renaissance Italy, and Leonardo studied machines that could make thread production faster and more regular. His sketches show rotating components, drums, spindles, and winding arrangements intended to reduce manual effort and improve consistency.

The design belongs to Leonardo’s broader investigations of automation. He frequently analyzed repetitive work and asked how cams, gears, and rotating shafts could perform it. That does not make the machine equivalent to later industrial spinning frames, which used different power systems and production methods.

Leonardo’s textile sketches are sometimes incorrectly credited as the direct invention of the spinning jenny. James Hargreaves patented the spinning jenny in 1770, more than two centuries later.