What Leonardo da Vinci machine was intended to pump water using a helical screw?

Leonardo da Vinci studied and designed water pumps based on Archimedes’ screw.

An Archimedes’ screw consists of a helical surface or blade arranged inside a tube or trough. When the screw turns, water is carried upward along the spiral, making the device useful for irrigation, drainage, and raising water between different levels.

The basic invention was ancient and is traditionally associated with Archimedes of Syracuse, who lived in the third century BCE. Leonardo did not invent the principle, but his notebooks show careful mechanical study and adaptations of screw-based water-lifting machinery.

This distinction matters because Renaissance engineers often improved older devices rather than creating them from nothing. Leonardo’s drawings helped preserve and explore the mechanism, but the name “Archimedes’ screw” refers to its ancient origin.