Leonardo da Vinci designed a diving suit with a breathing mask and air tubes.
Leonardo’s diving-suit concept was intended for underwater work, probably including covert military operations against enemy ships. His drawings show a full-body garment, a mask covering the face, and tubes leading upward toward the water’s surface. The arrangement was meant to let a diver breathe while remaining submerged.
The design belongs to Leonardo’s broader study of naval engineering. It was not a modern self-contained scuba system: the diver depended on air supplied from above, and the practical behavior of the tubes, seals, and breathing passages would have posed serious problems.
The suit is sometimes described as a submarine or as scuba equipment, but neither label is exact. A submarine is a vessel, while modern scuba gear carries compressed air. Leonardo’s proposal was an early conceptual diving apparatus, not a documented working invention.