Leonardo da Vinci sketched a pyramid-shaped parachute as a device for descending safely from a height.
His design appears in the Codex Atlanticus and uses a rigid wooden frame covered with cloth. Leonardo reasoned that the structure would create enough air resistance to slow a person's fall. The drawing is one of his best-known studies of controlled flight.
The design was not a modern parachute: it had a solid pyramidal frame rather than a flexible canopy. In 2000, British skydiver Adrian Nicholas built and tested a full-scale version, reporting that it descended successfully, although he used a modern parachute for the final landing. Leonardo's sketch was therefore an early theoretical design, not evidence that he completed a working aircraft.