![]() Magherini noted that, in her experience, the Stendhal syndrome was a phenomenon that applied exclusively to foreign tourists. panic attacks and physiological symptoms of heightened anxiety, such as chest pain. ![]() depressive anxiety, a sense of inadequacy, or, conversely, a sense of euphoria or omnipotence.altered perception of sounds or colors, as well as an increased sense of anxiety, guilt, or persecution.Magherini identified three main types of symptoms in people who apparently had the Stendhal syndrome: “Roughly speaking, the Stendhal syndrome can be defined as the psychosomatic response experienced while facing esthetic beauty but not natural beauty - beauty as a construct, so art,” Dr. ![]() “As I emerged from the porch of Santa Croce, I was seized with a fierce palpitation of the heart (the same symptom which, in Berlin, is referred to as an attack of nerves) the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.” The sense of awe experienced by being in the proximity of so many impressive historical and art monuments allegedly gave the writer heart palpitations and made him feel faint. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty, I had attained to that supreme degree of sensibility where the divine intimations of art merge with the impassioned sensuality of emotion.” In it, Stendhal wrote: “My soul, affected by the very notion of being in Florence, and by the proximity of those great men whose tombs I had just beheld, was already in a state of trance. The name alludes to an episode described by the French writer Stendhal in his travel memoir Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio about the journey that he undertook through Italy in 1817. Magherini first described this phenomenon in a book she published in 1989, called La sindrome di Stendhal ( The Stendhal Syndrome). Magherini identified this as a unique phenomenon after noticing that “there was a huge amount of people - for an Italian - being hospitalized after having experienced feelings of unease in the presence of Florence monuments, museums, and art galleries, and she believed that a experience could be found in Stendhal’s writings about Italy, and so she coined the expression ‘the Stendhal syndrome.'”ĭr. ![]() “he one who coined the expression psychiatrist working at the hospital in Florence, Graziella Magherini, who witnessed over the years the recurrence of a certain kind of patients being treated for similar symptoms,” Dr. Fabio Camilletti, an associate professor and reader at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick in Coventry, United Kingdom. To find out more about the history and definition of the Stendhal syndrome, Medical News Today spoke to Dr. ‘I walked in fear of falling to the ground’ In this Curiosities of Medical History feature, we look at how this syndrome is defined, what its alleged symptoms are, what role it plays in cultural history, and, of course, whether or not it is a real medical phenomenon. Anecdotes describing the formidable effect of great artworks on the human psyche, however, date back to at least the 19th century. This phenomenon is now referred to as the Stendhal syndrome, a term coined by an Italian psychiatrist in 1989. Why would anyone suggest this, and is such a phenomenon even possible?Īlthough it may seem bizarre, there is a fairly long history behind the notion that art can be so overwhelming as to cause physical illness. The implication behind the headlines was not that the event had been a coincidence but, in fact, that the artwork’s staggering beauty had caused the heart attack. Only about 2 years ago, international press headlines tooted that a man had experienced a heart attack while admiring the famous painting by the Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli, “ The Birth of Venus,” which is housed at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. Share on Pinterest Image credit: Comstock/Getty Images
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