Leonardo da Vinci designed cranes with rotating arms and counterweights for lifting materials.
His notebooks contain many crane studies, including machines with masts, booms, pulleys, ropes, winches, and balancing weights. These arrangements were intended to raise and move heavy blocks or other construction loads while giving workers more control than a simple rope and pulley.
Leonardo did not invent the crane as a general machine. Ancient Greek and Roman builders already used cranes, but Renaissance engineers refined their mechanisms and adapted them to particular building sites. Leonardo's drawings are valuable because they show detailed attention to motion, leverage, friction, and the practical placement of operators.
A crane differs from a catapult, which stores and releases energy to launch an object. A crane is primarily a lifting and positioning machine. Leonardo explored both construction equipment and military devices, so the two types can appear near each other in discussions of his notebooks.