Leonardo da Vinci’s parachute sketch shows a pyramidal canopy. He described a linen-covered wooden frame intended to let a person descend safely from a height.
Leonardo recorded the idea around 1485 in the Codex Atlanticus. His design was not a compact, foldable parachute like a modern one. Instead, it used a rigid pyramid-shaped structure about seven metres high and seven metres wide, according to the accompanying description.
The concept reflects Leonardo’s method of combining observation with mechanical speculation. He reasoned that a sufficiently large canopy would resist falling through air, although he did not build a documented full-scale version. The shape also distinguishes this design from the circular parachutes used today.
A common mix-up is calling it a conical parachute because the drawing is viewed from an angle. Its defining geometric description is pyramidal. In 2000, Adrian Nichols tested a wooden-and-canvas reconstruction and reported that it was stable, though he released it only from a balloon with a modern parachute available as a safety measure.