Leonardo da Vinci designed a pyramid-shaped parachute for a controlled descent through the air.
He described the device in a manuscript entry usually dated to around 1485. His design used a rigid wooden framework covered with tightly stretched linen. Leonardo reasoned that the structure would trap enough air to let a person descend safely, even though he did not test it himself.
The design is often called an early parachute concept, not the first modern parachute. Modern parachutes use flexible fabric canopies, suspension lines, and harnesses, whereas Leonardo’s design was a large, stiff pyramid. In 2000, British skydiver Adrian Nichols built and tested a replica based on Leonardo’s drawing. The replica worked, although Nichols opened a modern parachute at a safer height.
Leonardo’s proposal belongs to his broader investigations of air resistance, falling bodies, and flight. It is separate from his bird-inspired flying machines and from later parachute designs developed centuries afterward.