Leonardo da Vinci described a parachute with a pyramid-shaped wooden frame and cloth covering.
The design appears in Leonardo’s Codex Atlanticus, where he proposed a rigid pyramid roughly seven metres high and wide, covered with linen held tightly in place. He wrote that a person could jump from a great height and descend safely with the device. The concept uses drag from a large surface to slow falling rather than wings to generate forward flight.
Leonardo’s parachute was a theoretical design, and there is no evidence that he tested it. Its rigid frame would have made it heavy and awkward compared with later fabric parachutes. In 2000, British adventurer Adrian Nichols built and tested a modern interpretation of the design, using contemporary materials and a safety system; the replica descended successfully, although it was released from a hot-air balloon rather than used by Leonardo.
The sketch is frequently described as an early parachute concept, not the first practical parachute. Later inventors developed collapsible fabric canopies, suspension lines, and harnesses that made parachutes usable in aviation.