Which Leonardo da Vinci device was a mechanical drum designed to create music?

Leonardo da Vinci’s self-playing percussion device was a mechanical drum.

Leonardo designed a mechanical drum that could produce rhythmic sounds through programmed mechanical motion. The concept used a rotating mechanism and pegs or activating elements to strike drums in a sequence. It formed part of his work on automated entertainment and mechanical spectacles for courtly events.

The device was not an electronic instrument and did not record music. It also differs from a music box, whose pins usually pluck metal teeth, and from a player piano, which operates piano keys. Leonardo’s mechanical drum illustrates how he applied cams, gears, springs, and timed motion to performance. As with many of his inventions, the surviving evidence is primarily notebook drawings and reconstructions rather than a securely documented original machine.