Leonardo da Vinci sketched a pyramid-shaped parachute in 1485.
The design appears in the Codex Atlanticus, where Leonardo proposed a rigid wooden frame covered with linen cloth. He estimated that a person could jump safely from a great height using the device. Its broad, square canopy was intended to create enough air resistance to slow the descent.
Leonardo’s parachute was not built and tested during his lifetime. The surviving drawing is a design study rather than proof of a working flight machine. In 2000, British skydiver Adrian Nicholas constructed a full-size replica and reported that it descended successfully, although it had to be released from a balloon rather than used in a normal jump.
The concept is often called an early parachute, but it was not the first modern parachute. André-Jacques Garnerin made a documented successful jump with a flexible parachute in 1797, more than three centuries later.