How did Renaissance People Get High?

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The Renaissance is remembered as an age of clarity, reason, and rediscovered beauty — but it was also an age lived through smoke, drink, and tincture. From wine-soaked debates in Florentine taverns to incense-thickened chapels, from apothecary jars of opium and mandrake to the first bitter sips of coffee, this was a world where enlightenment often arrived through a haze. In this video, we wander through the intoxicating side of the Renaissance — a history not of statues and sonnets, but of cups, vials, and rituals that dulled, sharpened, or transformed the human mind.

Join me as we explore how scholars, peasants, nobles, and monks all shared in this universal search for escape and endurance — and how a society that celebrated clarity so often found it clouded.

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