Leonardo da Vinci sketched a parachute in 1485 as a device for descending safely from great heights.
His drawing shows a pyramid-shaped wooden frame covered with tightly stretched fabric. Leonardo reasoned that a person could descend inside the structure without injury if it were sufficiently broad and deep. The sketch appears in the Codex Atlanticus and is one of his best-known studies of flight and air resistance.
The design was not a modern parachute: it had a rigid frame, no suspension lines, and no evidence that Leonardo tested it. In 2000, British adventurer Adrian Nicholas built a full-scale replica and reported that it descended successfully, although he used a modern parachute for the final part of his test because the replica could not be steered safely near the ground.
Leonardo’s proposal came long before practical parachutes became common. The word and modern form developed later, but his drawing demonstrates an early attempt to apply aerodynamic reasoning to human survival during a fall.