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| Admonition to readers
If you are looking solely for information about Leonardo da Vinci, and have no interest in [Star Trek: Voyager], this site is not the place to visit - see Sources for some good Leonardo sites and books - maybe your search engine brought you here without you realising this is a [Star Trek: Voyager] site? Whether you are a Leonardo aficionado or a [Voyager] fan or both, please note that my articles are tailored to certain [Voyager] episodes only. Leonardo's biographical data is not intended to be comprehensive as these webpages are not devoted to Leonardo but to Holo-Leonardo and his holographic workshop. "Admonition to readers" is a heading in Leonardo's introduction to his notebooks. |
Throughout this section I make the distinction between "Leonardo", the real-life Leonardo da Vinci, and "Holo-Leonardo", the holographic re-creation of him on USS Voyager's Holodeck.
I crave your indulgence, O Reader, because the Da Vinci site section is not quite finished, as I have yet to upgrade VHS screencaptures to DVD ones on two pages. I do not intend to be like the Master (Holo-)Leonardo himself and never complete them, even though my stuff is hardly art or even creative. They will be done after I have upgraded the VHS screenshots to DVD ones in the Episode Guide for [The Omega Directive]. I also would like to add brief information about a selection of 48 of Leonardo's machines, albeit of no direct relevance to [Voyager], which will be accessible from the Secret Room.
As a result of months spent researching Leonardo da Vinci in preparation for this article, I have become a Leonardo fan. I feel he was the Wallace of his day (as in "Wallace & Gromit") - a light-hearted comment but with some serious meaning. A man ahead of his time, his observations plus ideas and inventions have given us a lasting legacy as he envisioned the forerunners of machines and technology we take for granted - submarine, aqualung, tank, automobile, glider.....even if for centuries his notebooks remained unavailable for various reasons so that they could not directly influence scientific and technological progress. He also invented less inspiring technology such as an air-conditioning system for Isabelle d'Este's house. He was a polymath and influenced people in all kinds of fields, both at that time and even today. 
Artistically, Leonardo greatly influenced his peers and successors, including Raphael. He raised Renaissance art to a new level by developing "sfumato". Even in his own time Leonardo was considered one of the greatest painters in history. Famous art we still enjoy today include the portrait "Mona Lisa" and the fresco "The Last Supper". The former is seen in the Da Vinci episodes and the latter is mentioned by Kate Mulgrew as Shannon O'Donnel in the Season 5 episode [11:59]. His most famous works, except for "The Last Supper", are seen or mentioned or inferred in the [Voyager] Da Vinci episodes.
Janeway has a drawing of the Maestro, [#145 The Haunting Of Deck Twelve]
The drawing was originally and is still often thought to be a self-portrait, but probably it was by one of Leonardo's circle perhaps his close friend and pupil Francesco Melzi
I have been intending to do an article on the Da Vinci holoprogram for years. Fortunately for me, when I started research Richter's publication in 1883 of all Leonardo's literary works then extant had just been made available online, and in English. 
They have been online as just text since 2004, but are now available complete with notebook drawings. I recommend you read at least part, in order to "hear" the Maestro thinking. Unfortunately, the Codex Atlanticus, which deals with his machine inventions, were published in 1906 but no longer in print and copies of that edition are extremely rare. However, there are some excellent books available, and an exhibition of part is on worldwide tour, having started in Europe in 2006 (the London leg, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, ends 7th January 2007), and it will finish in the USA and Japan in 2007. See Sources for more information generally. The increase in published books and websites might be due to a public resurgence of interest in the Maestro following the publication of Dan Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code" and its film version released in spring 2006.
Due to compiling this article, I have learned an awful lot about Leonardo, and also about [Voyager]. I had not realised before just how many references to Leonardo's life the writers and producers had inserted into the various Da Vinci episodes. Look around Holo-Leonardo's workshop via my articles and you will see what I mean - a large number of Leonardo's famous works are seen somewhere in there or are inferred or are even mentioned in dialogue. That meant the article took longer to write than expected, and partly because I kept getting more ideas about what major topics to add.
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On pages which are more about Leonardo than Holo-Leonardo I have put the Maestro's self-portrait on the background parchment image - it is an indicator of sorts, though of course the article's title and references to "Leonardo" rather than "Holo-Leonardo" are the main indicators. A very reduced image of it is shown left. Though often labelled as his self-portrait, the drawing was probably done by one of the Maestro's circle perhaps his close friend Francesco Melzi. |
| Researching this article has confirmed my suspicion that if those days had been less pervaded by superstitution and intolerance (1481 and 1487 saw the establishment of the Spanish Inquisition and the publication of "The Hammer Of Witches" respectively), who knows what more someone like Leonardo could have achieved. If the Dark Ages had not lasted so long, I suggest we might be in the equivalent of Starfleet's 24th century already, as so much had to be re-learned in Medieval times from Classical times about, say, architecture, metals and alloys, medicine etc. Leonardo did a service to everyone with his close scientific observations of human anatomy, done at personal cost (he found it most unpleasant - they did not have suitable means to preserve bodies - and such work bordered on heretical and later he was even banned by a Pope). Thanks to Leonardo, the human heart, veins, arteries, bones and sinews were drawn more accurately than before. |  "witches" were executed and died horribly   |
I could not resist doing the Secret Room - enter from the "Leonardo's Life" Index. One of the things in the Secret Room is a (short) light-hearted page. There is also a light-hearted section accessible from the Index.
In case you did not know, the man known to history as Leonardo da Vinci was in fact an almost immortal humanoid by the name (or pseudonym) "Flint". Captain James T. Kirk, his First Officer Spock and Dr Leonard McCoy encountered him in [TOS: Requiem For Methuselah]. Captain Kathryn Janeway mentions Kirk's encounter with "Flint" in [ 79 Concerning Flight]. |
 Leonardo da Vinci - an alien |
And last but not least, thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoy the Da Vinci section!
Janet's Star Trek Voyager Site