Leonardo da Vinci sketched a loom for automated weaving and textile production.
Textile machinery appears among Leonardo's studies of labor-saving devices. A loom interlaces two sets of threads: the lengthwise warp and the crosswise weft. By organizing the raising and lowering of warp threads and the movement of the shuttle, a loom can produce fabric in a regular pattern.
Leonardo's textile designs aimed to mechanize repetitive actions that were usually performed by hand. His drawings explore coordinated motion, frames, shuttles and mechanisms that could improve speed or consistency. They should not be mistaken for evidence that he operated a fully automated factory or introduced industrial power weaving.
Looms themselves are much older than Leonardo. Ancient civilizations used hand looms, while later developments such as the flying shuttle and power loom transformed textile manufacturing. Leonardo's contribution was a set of inventive mechanical proposals within that long history, not the invention of weaving or the modern industrial loom.