Five hundred years ago, Renaissance inventor Leonardo Da Vinci put his hand to designing an artificial leg.

An Italian museum dedicated to his inventions in his Tuscan birthplace, Vinci, recently unveiled a working model of Leonardo’s limb.

In fleshing out his creation, Da Vinci described the leg as “round…with soft annealed copper wires then folded for a natural effect.” The model made today by local craftsmen was inspired by a 1508 drawing of his anatomy studies now known as the Windsor Collection.

Instead of just rehashing the great man’s better known inventions, the Museo Ideale in Vinci often highlights his more obscure experiments, such as plastic.

More on Leonardo from the archive:
Leonardo Da Vinci “Confetti Machine” Fires Up Carnival
High-Res Last Supper Reveals Leonardo’s Secrets
Neutron Beams Search for Da Vinci’s Lost Masterpiece
Digital Da Vinci Codes: Thousands of Leonardo’s Papers Go Online