When Da Vinci Built a Robotic Lion to Impress the French

In the early 16th century, a lion made of wood and metal appeared before the French royal court and stunned its audience. It walked on its own, lifted its head and opened its chest to reveal a bouquet of lilies (fleurs-de-lis). Created by Leonardo da Vinci, the lion was more than a feat of engineering. It served as a powerful gesture of diplomacy and innovation at a time when art, science and politics were closely intertwined.

“Art and science in Leonardo were never completely disconnected,” says Edoardo Zanon, scientific director at the Leonardo3 Museum in Milan, Italy, which features a modern reconstruction of the lion. “The mechanical lion is a complex project, both mechanically and symbolically, but perhaps it is bold to place it within Leonardo's artistic production and compare it to his great masterpieces.”

The lion was likely commissioned to commemorate a December 1515 meeting in Bologna between King Francis I and Pope Leo X, but its creation coincided with a broader political agenda. Da Vinci, then in the service of Pope Leo’s brother, Giuliano de’ Medici, had a front-row seat to the political choreography of early Renaissance Europe. The Medici family, who were exiled from Florence in 1492, aimed to return to power by securing the favor of the French crown.

“The Medici were eager to get back into Florence and in order to do so they needed the approval of the French king,” says Francesca Fiorani, a University of Virginia art history professor and resident da Vinci expert. “Hence, the need to flatter him in any possible way, including a gift from Leonardo da Vinci.”

While no original blueprints survive, fragments of the lion’s design can be traced through da Vinci’s Madrid Codex and other surviving notebooks. Most of what’s known, however, comes from later descriptions, especially those by Giorgio Vasari, whose biographies of Renaissance artists describe the lion in vivid detail. While other accounts exaggerate the lion’s abilities, suggesting it could roar or move autonomously for long distances, modern reconstructions prove that its basic motion was entirely feasible using 16th-century technology.

At a time when most machines relied on brute force or water flow, da Vinci created a machine with uncanny realism. His mechanical lion reflected years of careful observation and study. He had dissected animals, sketched lions in motion and explored how joints carried weight.

It is believed the lion’s mechanical abilities drew from da Vinci’s earlier experiments with automata, including his design for a robotic knight in the 1490s. That creation, documented in da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus (a 12-volume set of drawings and writings), included systems for arm articulation and torso rotation. As a machine, the lion was likely powered by coiled springs or weighted gears similar to the period’s clockwork devices.

Da Vinci chose the lion for its powerful symbolism. In heraldry, lions represent courage, power and nobility—traits Renaissance rulers were eager to align themselves with.

“The choice of a lion for such a gift was fitting on numerous counts,” says Fiorani. “It referred to the name of the pope Leo X who commissioned the work, as well as to the name of the artist. ‘Leo’ means lion in Latin, and it is also the root of the name ‘Leonardo.' Finally, it also referred to the city of Lyon, France, where the French king was and where the gift was delivered.”

In 1516, da Vinci relocated at the invitation of Francis I, who offered him the title “Premier Painter, Engineer and Architect of the King” and installed him in the Château du Clos Lucé near the royal court. By this time, da Vinci was in his 60s, his health declining, but his mind still teeming with ideas.

“In his workshops at Clos Lucé, he put the finishing touches on the works he had brought with him, including Saint Anne and Saint John the Baptist,” says François Saint Bris, president of Château du Clos Lucé. “As an engineer and architect, he worked tirelessly on several major town planning and hydraulic projects commissioned by the king.”

He also continued to design elaborate stage effects, including movable scenery and pageantry, each underscored by his mechanical prowess. The mechanical lion stands out among these late works for its ambition.

The lion may not have inspired a direct lineage of robotic inventions, partly because the Madrid Codex was lost for centuries and only rediscovered in the 1960s. But the symbolic weight of this mechanical wonder has grown over time. It stands as an early, almost mythical ancestor to modern robotics and automata. It reminds us that long before artificial intelligence and machine learning, there were dreamers who imagined lifelike machines not for productivity but for wonder and amazement.

“Designed to astonish and impress, this automaton highlights Leonardo’s ability to apply his technical knowledge in the service of spectacle and royal power,” says Saint Bris. “It also stands as one of the earliest examples of mechanical thinking applied to animated objects, making Leonardo a pioneer of robotics.”