What name is given to Leonardo da Vinci’s humanoid machine presented at the Milan court?

Leonardo da Vinci’s humanoid machine is commonly called the mechanical knight.

Leonardo designed the figure around 1495 while working in Milan for Ludovico Sforza. Drawings indicate that the machine could sit, stand, raise its arms, and move its head and jaw through a system of cables, pulleys, and gears.

The design was probably intended for a court pageant or festival rather than military service. It was concealed inside armor, allowing the movements to appear as if they were performed by a living armored figure.

No original mechanical knight has survived, so modern reconstructions rely on Leonardo’s sketches and notes. The machine was an automaton, not an artificial-intelligence robot. The term “robot” is a later label, associated with the word introduced in Karel Čapek’s 1920 play R.U.R.