What mechanical figure did Leonardo da Vinci design to walk and sit?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a robot knight that could walk and sit.

He created the design around 1495 while working for Ludovico Sforza in Milan. The figure wore a suit of armor and used an internal system of pulleys, cables, and gears to imitate human movements. Reconstructions based on Leonardo’s drawings indicate that the mechanism could move its arms, sit, and stand, although the exact range of motion depends on how the incomplete plans are interpreted.

The robot was probably intended for a court spectacle rather than practical labor. No original machine has survived, and for centuries the design was known mainly through Leonardo’s technical notes. In 2002, roboticist Mark Rosheim built a working reconstruction. The term “robot” is modern; Leonardo’s contemporaries would have viewed the figure as an automaton or mechanical man.