What type of machine did Leonardo da Vinci design to play music automatically?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a musical automaton to play music automatically.

Leonardo's mechanical studies included devices that could produce music without a performer continuously controlling every action. One example is a drum-equipped mechanical instrument associated with his work for the Milanese court. Its movement could be driven by a rotating mechanism, allowing programmed patterns to sound as the device turned.

Such a machine belongs to the historical tradition of automata: self-operating mechanisms designed for display, entertainment, or court spectacle. It was not an electronic instrument and did not record music in the modern sense.

The design is sometimes casually called a music box, but that term usually refers to later mechanisms using a pinned cylinder or disc and tuned metal teeth. Leonardo's machine is more accurately described as a musical automaton.