Which Renaissance artist designed an armored fighting vehicle often called an early tank?

Leonardo da Vinci designed the armored fighting vehicle often called an early tank.

Leonardo drew the machine during the 1480s while working in Milan for Ludovico Sforza. Its broad, sloping shell was intended to protect the crew from enemy fire. Several weapons could be positioned around the perimeter, while operators inside would turn cranks connected to the wheels.

Calling it an early tank is useful as a comparison, but Leonardo’s vehicle was not a tank in the modern military sense. It had no engine, armor standards, radio, or proven battlefield performance. The design remained on paper, and historians have debated whether a gearing mistake would have prevented the wheels from driving correctly.

Leonardo was not only a painter. His notebooks cover mechanics, anatomy, architecture, hydraulics, and military engineering. The fighting vehicle illustrates his habit of combining practical construction ideas with visual studies of how machines might work.