Leonardo da Vinci sketched a parachute in 1485, using a pyramid-shaped frame and cloth canopy.
His drawing appears in the Codex Atlanticus and shows a rigid wooden pyramid covered with linen. Leonardo proposed that a person could descend safely from a height while suspended beneath the structure. The design was about seven metres high and seven metres wide at its base, making it far larger and more rigid than a modern parachute.
Leonardo did not build or test the device, and it was not a practical parachute by modern standards. In 2000, the British adventurer Adrian Nicholas built a replica and tested it successfully, although he eventually cut away from it because controlling the landing was difficult.
The sketch is often called an early parachute rather than the first modern parachute. Modern parachutes use flexible fabric, suspension lines and a harness, while Leonardo’s concept depended on a fixed pyramidal frame.