What robot did Leonardo da Vinci design in the form of a medieval armored knight?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical knight in the form of a medieval armored knight.

He prepared the design around 1495 for a pageant in Milan sponsored by Ludovico Sforza. The machine was intended to sit, stand, raise its arms, and move its head and jaw through an internal system of cables, pulleys, and gears. Its outer appearance used armor, making it suitable for a court spectacle rather than a battlefield.

The original machine has not survived, and no contemporary record proves that Leonardo completed the exact design. In the 2000s, engineer Mark Rosheim built a reconstruction based on Leonardo’s drawings and demonstrated movements that fit the mechanism. That reconstruction helped show that the design was more than a purely imaginary robot.

The mechanical knight is often called Leonardo’s robot, but it was not an electronic machine. It was a Renaissance automaton powered by mechanical linkages and possibly operated by an internal human or external mechanism, depending on the reconstruction.