The Invention of You: How the Renaissance Discovered the Self

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We talk about the Renaissance as the time people rediscovered the ancient world. But they were also discovering themselves, for the first time.

For most of human history, nobody really knew what they looked like. Then a mirror, a chimney, a printing press, and a blank book arrived within about 150 years of each other, and together they invented something brand new: the interior life. The private self.

In this episode: Venetian glass mirrors that once cost as much as a naval ship, the rise of private heated rooms, the explosion of diary keeping, and why Hamlet might be the most "online" character in literary history.

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