What was Leonardo da Vinci’s parachute made from, according to his 15th-century design?

Leonardo da Vinci’s parachute was designed with linen covering supported by wooden poles.

Leonardo sketched the parachute in the Codex Atlanticus around 1485. His design had a pyramid-like canopy approximately 7.2 metres high and 7.2 metres wide at its base. He reasoned that a person could descend safely from a height inside the suspended structure. The drawing shows a rigid frame rather than the flexible fabric canopies used by modern parachutists.

Leonardo’s parachute was never tested by him. In 2000, British adventurer Adrian Nicholas built a replica and successfully descended with it, although he used a modern parachute as a backup because of safety concerns. The experiment supported the aerodynamic plausibility of the design, but it did not make Leonardo the inventor of the modern parachute, which developed through later experiments and materials.