Mashup: Thinking Too Much about Geeks in History
Yes folks, here it is, Geek Life’s first mash-up article. Mash-ups are nothing new, but have normally been restricted to music and videos. Well, we here at Geek-Life thumb our noses at convention and in the tradition of the musical great Vanilla Ice, we have decided to sample from our own work to bring you “quality” mash-up entertainment! This outstanding mash-up was inspired by Jamie’s Geeks in History, Dan’s Thinking Too Much columns, and a term paper that my youngest daughter Megan is writing.
The idea for this article started with my daughter Megan. She came home one day from school trying to figure out what to write her AP European history paper on. I gave her a few suggestions and didn’t think much more about it until a few weeks later when she declared that the basic premise of her paper was going to be on Leonardo da Vinci. My response was “Cool! What aspect of him are you going to write about?” and her reply was “He was a super villain!” My heart swelled with pride to hear those words come from my youngest daughter’s lips. Words cannot describe how it feels to see my youngest manifest geek genius ideas like this. I don’t know where she gets it (It turns out is was inspired by an article from Cracked.com) but I’m glad she did! After clearing the tears of joy from my eyes, I asked between giggles “How do you figure?” After a brief explanation, the only thing I could do was agree with her. I was saddened when she told me that she would have to reword her thesis to make the whole idea behind the paper more acceptable to her teacher. The subject matter wouldn’t change, but she didn’t feel like she could get away with flat out calling Leo a super villain.
This got my nasty little mind working. Being a long time fan of Jamie’s series Geeks in History and having just read Dan’s Thinking Too Much article about supervillains, I knew that this mash-up had to happen. I started to throw ideas at my daughter for her paper and she finally hinted that I should shut up and write an article about this, so here I am.
According to the always reliable Wikipedia, Leonardo da Vinci was born out of wedlock on 15 April 1452 to notary Piero da Vinci and a peasant woman Caterina (she was so poor she couldn’t afford a last name) in the region of Florence. After being educated in the studio of Verrocchio, he traveled and worked in such places as Rome, Bologna (MY city has a first name it’s B-O-L-O-G….), Venice, and, finally, in France. Leo was truly a renaissance man who dabbled in many of the art forms and constantly sought knowledge. Beyond his most famous painting, the Mona Lisa, he is credited with developing the concept for a helicopter, a tank, and a steam powered cannon. During his life he held many jobs as a military architect and engineer and Leo was an accomplished cartographer as well.
Up to now, minus a few things, Leo seems like your everyday talented kind of guy, but things start getting wonky when we look at his personal life. Leo was said to respect life, so much so, that he was a vegetarian and was known to purchase caged birds and release them. His sexual orientation was (and still is) a subject of speculation. He was never married and when he was 24, he was charged with sodomy with three other men and a well known male prostitute. One of the three accused men was a member of the de Medici family so the charges were dropped.
Megan was right! Leonardo da Vinci had all of the makings of a supervillain. The following sentence was taken from Wikipedia’s supervillain page and I think it sums it up rather well: The super villain often possesses a genius intellect that allows him to draft complex schemes or create fantastic devices with considerable resources at his disposal to further his aims.
First, there are few people who would argue that da Vinci possessed a genius level intellect. From what I’ve read, he was good at everything he put his mind to. Many of his inventions were not possible to produce at the time, but as Dan so aptly pointed out in his life lessons from supervillians, Leonardo kept going and he kept going big. He created fantastic devices that, while not possible at the time, would have killed hundreds if not thousands of people if used in war. How many people, especially artists, sit around and draw pictures of what could, at the time, be called weapons of mass destruction?
Now, if we look past da Vinci’s propensity for inventing deadly things and peer into his sordid past, we see a man with a back story that could rival most modern supervillians. First, being the child of a notary and a peasant was a big no-no. Add to that the fact that Leonardo was born out of wedlock and things just get even tougher. I would totally hold a grudge if was him. Things don’t get much better as he gets older….
Our society has become more understanding of homosexuality (just watch ten minutes of Glee) but even with many people changing their views on same sex relationships, people who have same sex relationships are still bullied, harassed, and even killed because of their sexuality. Imagine how hard it was for Leonardo living in Italy! Italy, as in right next door to the Pope, Italy. Birth circumstances aside, the crap he must have dealt with because of his sexuality would be enough to turn anyone supervillian. But the last and final straw was his reported love of life.
Being from Texas, I have a hard time trusting Vegetarians. I have nothing against them, in fact, one of my favorite authors is one… she doesn’t even eat bacon! Yes, if you do not eat bacon, (aka God’s candy) then I tend to develop trust issues with you. If Leonardo had eaten meat, especially bacon, I feel like he would be much less suspect. If he had dietary or even religious issues that kept him from bacon, then I could forgive him, but not eating bacon by choice… that is a crime unto itself.
Now bacon aside, we should look at Leonardo’s connection with the de Medici family. He was arrested with one of the male members of that storied family and the charges were dropped. You can’t tell me or history that Leonardo didn’t “owe” them one for that. The more you look at the pieces of Leonardo’s life, the more complete the supervillian puzzle becomes. The deeper I get into this tangled web that is Leonardo da Vinci, the more I am convinced that my 14 year old daughter is right. This is one of those cases when a teen actually does know more than her parents. There is no doubt that Leonardo flew his freak and geek flags proudly. Some might argue with the whole supervillian thing, but I know the truth! I am contemplating getting a master’s degree in history, just so I can write a thesis on this subject. I might even reference my daughter’s paper. I can see it now… history books will be re-written. Megan and I will be on the talk show circuit. We’ll be rich… or maybe I’m just over thinking this.
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Laurie
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