What name is given to Leonardo da Vinci’s human-sized mechanical knight?

Leonardo da Vinci’s human-sized mechanical knight is known as Leonardo’s robot.

Leonardo designed the automaton in 1495 for a pageant at the court of Ludovico Sforza in Milan. The machine was dressed in armor and could reportedly sit, stand, raise its arms, and move its head and jaw through a system of pulleys, cables, and gears. The original device does not survive.

The robot was reconstructed in the 21st century from Leonardo’s anatomical drawings and mechanical notes. In 2002, the engineer Mark Rosheim built a working model based on the surviving evidence. The reconstruction supported the idea that Leonardo’s design was mechanically plausible, although it cannot prove every performance attributed to the original.

The term “robot” is retrospective. Leonardo did not use that word; it entered English much later, after Karel Čapek’s 1920 play R.U.R. Leonardo’s machine was an automaton, meaning a self-operating mechanical figure created for spectacle and demonstration.