From the sixteenth century, European physicians recorded patients who were convinced that their bodies were made of glass. The French king Charles VI, who was ill for much of his reign, had iron rods sewn into his clothes in 1393 to keep himself from shattering. Other cases included a man who believed his buttocks were made of windowpane glass and a nobleman who thought he was shaped like a glass pitcher. The condition, later called the glass delusion, appeared in medical literature for about four centuries. Writers picked up the idea too. Cervantes's 1613 story El licenciado Vidriera features a law student who believes he is made of glass and who speaks with a blunt honesty that the delusion makes possible. Historians see the delusion as a psychological idiom for fragility and for things people could not say openly.

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.