What mechanical figure did Leonardo da Vinci design that could move its arms and jaw?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a robotic knight, a human-shaped automaton capable of mechanical movement.

Leonardo developed the design for a Milanese court celebration around 1495. The armored figure was operated by cables and pulleys connected to a system inside its body. Reconstructions indicate that the mechanism could sit, stand, move its arms, and move its jaw.

The robot was not an autonomous machine in the modern sense. It had no electronic controls, computer, or independent decision-making system. Its movements came from carefully arranged mechanical parts and an operator or programmed mechanism.

The design is known from Leonardo’s notebooks, especially studies connected with the Codex Atlanticus. In 2002, roboticist Mark Rosheim built a working reconstruction based on the surviving evidence. The project showed that Leonardo’s mechanical ideas were more technically coherent than the surviving sketch alone might suggest.