What Leonardo da Vinci water-lifting machine used a chain of buckets to raise water?

Leonardo da Vinci studied a bucket-chain pump that used linked buckets to raise water.

In a chain pump, an endless chain carries a series of small buckets or plates upward through a tube or channel. As the chain moves, water is lifted from a lower level to a higher one. Leonardo’s notebooks contain studies of machines for moving water and other materials, including bucket-chain arrangements.

The basic technology was ancient and had been used in China and elsewhere long before the Renaissance. Leonardo therefore did not originate the general concept, but his drawings show how he analyzed mechanical systems, power transmission, and useful work.

This pump differs from Archimedes’ screw, which raises water through a rotating helical surface inside a tube. A bucket-chain pump transports separate portions of water in containers attached to a moving chain.