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Satanic Tomatoes and Other Weird Details Not Taught in History Class

Khalid Elhassan July 4, 2020 33 min

South Lawn - Goat — Wilson's sheep. Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and Museum

7. Switching Bodies

Florence Cathedral’s il Duomo, designed by Filippo Brunelleschi. Flickr

Brunelleschi was known for thorough preparation and paying attention to detail in his career as an architect. He was equally thorough in pranking Manetto. First, he assembled a wide cast of characters and coached them on what was needed to convince the mark that he had metamorphosed into somebody else: a well-known Florentine, named Matteo.

Finally, one day in 1409, all was ready and the weird prank was put in motion. While Manetto was closing shop, Brunelleschi went to his house, picked the lock, entered, and barred the door behind him. When the mark got home, he discovered that the door was barred from within. Rattling the door, Manetto was alarmed to hear his own voice – actually Brunelleschi’s, doing an impersonation – asking who it was. Upon identifying himself, he was accused of lying by the voice on the other side of the door, who declared that he was Manetto.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.