What water-lifting device did Leonardo da Vinci design using a chain of buckets?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a bucket-chain water lift using a continuous chain of containers.

His notes and drawings include mechanisms in which buckets attached to a moving chain could descend into water, fill, rise, and empty at a higher level. Such a machine could raise water for irrigation, drainage, or construction. The principle depends on continuous circulation: the full buckets travel upward on one side while empty buckets return on the other.

The design belongs to a long history of bucket-chain water lifters. Similar devices were known before Leonardo, so it is inaccurate to call him the inventor of the general concept. His contribution was to study, depict, and adapt mechanical systems with gears, chains, and power sources.

This machine is also distinct from Leonardo’s spiral water-lifting designs. A bucket chain uses discrete containers, while a screw or spiral chamber carries water along a rotating helical surface. That difference makes the bucket-chain lift a separate invention category.