Leonardo da Vinci designed a diving suit for a person working underwater.
His sixteenth-century concept included a watertight garment, a mask, breathing tubes, and a method for keeping the tubes supported above the water. The design was connected with military ideas, especially the possibility of divers approaching or damaging enemy vessels. Leonardo also considered how a diver might receive air while submerged.
The concept was not a modern scuba suit. It relied on air supplied from above the surface rather than a compressed-air cylinder carried by the diver. Leonardo’s drawings and notes also included a flexible breathing tube and a float or bell-like arrangement intended to help keep the air system usable.
There is no reliable evidence that Leonardo built or tested the suit. Later diving equipment developed through many separate inventions, including diving bells, surface-supplied helmets, and self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. Leonardo’s design is important because it combined several principles of underwater clothing and air supply in one early proposal.