Leonardo da Vinci designed a humanoid robot in the form of a mechanical knight.
The design was created for a theatrical spectacle in Milan around 1495, during Leonardo’s work for Ludovico Sforza. The knight was built as an armored figure with internal cables, pulleys, and mechanisms that could produce human-like movements such as sitting, standing, and moving its arms.
Leonardo did not use the modern word “robot”; that term was coined much later. The machine is therefore also called a mechanical knight or automaton. Its purpose was entertainment and display, not independent intelligence or practical labor.
The original machine has not survived. In the twentieth century, researchers reconstructed versions by studying Leonardo’s drawings and notes. These reconstructions helped show that the design contained a plausible mechanical system, while also emphasizing the difference between a Renaissance automaton and a modern programmable robot.