Leonardo da Vinci sketched a pyramid-shaped parachute as a device for descending safely from a height.
His design appears in the Codex Atlanticus, a large collection of his notes and drawings. Leonardo described a linen cloth stretched over a rigid wooden pyramid, with the structure intended to slow a person's fall by creating air resistance.
Leonardo did not test the parachute, and the drawing was not a record of a completed working machine. Modern parachutes use flexible canopies, suspension lines, and harnesses rather than Leonardo's rigid frame. In 2000, British skydiver Adrian Nichols successfully tested a modern replica based on the sketch, although he used a backup parachute for safety.
The design is often cited as an early parachute concept, but Leonardo was not the first person in history to imagine a device for slowing a fall. His importance lies in the unusually detailed engineering analysis and illustration he produced centuries before practical parachuting became possible.