Modern people have a weird conception of history being nothing but a bunch of boring prudes whose entire lives consisted of church, famine, and shame. But one thing has always been true: Where you find bored people, you'll find people who are inventing diabolical ways to keep themselves entertained. And I'm telling you, some of the pranks of the distant past were intense .

4 A Famous Renaissance Architect Convinced His Friend He'd Switched Bodies

In fiction, geniuses either enrich humanity or get all supervillainy, but in real life, they usually do a bit of both. Filippo Brunelleschi (a prominent 14th-century architect in Florence) was a good example. His most famous work is the dome on the Cathedral of Santa Maria de Fiore, known locally as "that bigass dome." But he also supposedly pulled off what might be one of the greatest practical jokes ever.

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If accounts are to be believed, the victim was a carpenter known locally as "Il Grasso" -- which means "The Fat," because nickname technology was still rudimentary back then. Il Grasso did ... something to piss off Filippo, possibly missing a dinner party. Filippo decided that this unforgivable faux pas warranted driving Il Grasso to the brink of madness. He did this by convincing Il Grasso that he had switched bodies with Matteo, a local rich guy. That's right, he was going to force the guy to live an '80s body-swap comedy.

One fine day in 1409, as Il Grasso was walking home from his carpentry store, Filippo got to his house first, picked the lock, then locked the door behind him. When Il Grasso tried to get into his own home, Filippo impersonated Il Grasso's voice, telling him to go away. It seems Filippo was really good at doing voices, because Il Grasso was so confused that he wandered off to the town square, where he bumped into famous sculptor Donatello (who, unbeknownst to the victim, was in on the prank). Then Donatello was like, "Hey Matteo, what's up?"