What was Leonardo da Vinci’s mechanical musical instrument with a keyboard called?

Leonardo da Vinci’s mechanical keyboard instrument was called the viola organista.

Leonardo designed the instrument in the late fifteenth century and recorded versions of it in his notebooks. It used keys to control strings while a rotating mechanism supplied the friction needed to produce sound. The concept combined features associated with a bowed string instrument and a keyboard, allowing a player to control pitch with keys while the mechanism handled the bowing action.

The viola organista was never completed by Leonardo as a known working instrument. Its name is modern and describes the instrument’s intended hybrid character rather than a title Leonardo necessarily used for one finished model. Several modern makers have built reconstructions from his drawings.

It is easy to confuse the viola organista with Leonardo’s other studies of musical instruments, including the organ and mechanical drums. The viola organista is especially notable because it sought to make bowed-string sound playable through a keyboard.