Leonardo da Vinci sketched a pyramidal parachute for descending slowly from a height.
The design appears in the Codex Atlanticus, a collection of Leonardo’s notes and drawings. It consists of a large linen canopy stretched over a lightweight wooden framework. Leonardo wrote that a person could jump from a great height without injury if the structure were sufficiently wide and deep.
This was a theoretical design, not a documented flight test. In 2000, British skydiver Adrian Nichols built and tested a modern interpretation of Leonardo’s parachute. It descended successfully, although Nichols used a conventional parachute for the final landing because the historical design was difficult to steer.
Leonardo’s parachute is often confused with his flying-machine sketches. A parachute is designed to slow a fall, while an ornithopter or glider is intended to produce controlled forward flight.