What was Leonardo da Vinci’s walking mechanical figure commonly called?

Leonardo da Vinci’s walking mechanical figure is commonly called Leonardo’s robot.

Leonardo designed the humanoid machine around 1495 for a pageant in Milan sponsored by Ludovico Sforza. The figure wore armor and was built to sit, stand, raise its arms, and move its head and jaw through a system of cables, pulleys, and gears.

The machine was not an electronic robot and could not make decisions. In modern terminology, it was a mechanical automaton: a device that performs programmed movements through mechanisms. The original machine has not survived, and its exact performance remains partly uncertain.

Modern reconstructions based on Leonardo’s drawings have shown that the design is mechanically plausible. Its importance comes from its early use of human-like movement and programmable mechanical actions in a public spectacle.