Art Attack

Question: An eponymous psychological condition called "Stendhal syndrome" is rooted in the French novelist’s 1817 visit to what Italian city?

Answer: Florence

There is a bizarre phenomenon that affects a small number of travelers who visit Florence each year. Called "Stendhal syndrome," it’s when someone becomes so overwhelmed by an abundance of artistic riches, they suffer a psychological breakdown. Yes, it’s real. And since Florence is the main culprit, Stendhal syndrome is also known as "Florentine syndrome."

It gets its name from a visit to Florence by the French novelist Marie-Henri Beyle—better known by his pen name Stendhal. "I was in a sort of ecstasy from the idea of being in Florence," he wrote of his visit to the Tuscan capital in 1817. But then, "Leaving Santa Croce, I was seized with a fierce palpitation of the heart, life was ebbing out of me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground." This wasn’t a novelist taking artistic license. Something very frightening had happened to Stendahl—and it wasn’t just a fluke.

Flash forward to 1989. Graziella Magherini, a psychiatrist at Florence’s Santa Maria Nuova Hospital, began a 20-year study of 106 patients she had observed who exhibited clinical systems consistent with those described in Stendahl’s writings—dizziness, palpitations, hallucinations, and depersonalization. And for each patient, the symptoms manifested directly after viewing works of art such as Michelangelo’s sculptures and Botticelli’s paintings.

Wait, are you saying the art treasures of Florence’s are a health hazard?

Noting that it was mostly non-Italian visitors to Florence who seemed to be affected by Stendahl syndrome, Magherini believes that the root cause of these "panic attacks" is not entirely due to the psychological impact of observing the great masterpieces of Florence—but that the normal stress of traveling also plays a role (obviously, she isn’t referring to anyone traveling with O.A.T.!).

But you really shouldn’t concern yourself about whether gazing up at a Renaissance masterpiece is going to trigger Stendahl syndrome. Only about 10 to 20 cases are reported each year—and that’s out of some 13 million foreign visitors. While the symptoms may not be pleasant and may even require a medical check-up, most people are fine after some deep breathing and rest. Then again, there was that guy a few years ago …

In 2018, 68-year-old Carlo Olmastroni was admiring Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus in the Uffizi Gallery when he suddenly collapsed—it was a heart attack. The media quickly played it up as another high-profile example of Stendahl syndrome. But it really wasn’t. Olmastroni had underlying heart conditions that were to blame. Fortunately, he ended up making a full recovery. But he was lucky—a defibrillator had been installed the day before his visit. And even more fortunately, four doctors—including two Sicilian cardiologists—happened to be admiring The Birth of Venus at the same time as Olmastroni.

In 2022, the BBC interviewed a psychotherapist who lives and works in Florence. She said that Stendahl syndrome is a specific psychiatric disorder whose symptoms can be difficult to separate from other afflictions that commonly affect tourists. "Sometimes at the Uffizi," she said, "visitors have heart attacks, or feel sick. But it could just be being in an enclosed space with hundreds of other people. It could be agoraphobia, not Botticelli."

The idea that the art treasures of Florence—or art from anywhere, for that matter—could be a potential health hazard is patently absurd. OK, maybe inferior art is enough to make anyone a bit depressed. But if you’re entertaining a visit to Florence (something everyone must do at least once in their lives), the best advice is this: Just buck up, steel yourself, and gaze in awe at the greatest concentration of universally renowned art treasures in the world.

10 fascinating facts you may not know about Florence

• Senior living, please, no children, pets—Julius Caesar founded Florence in 59 BC as a retirement home for his veteran Roman soldiers.


• Abandon Latin all ye who enter here—By choosing to write his master work The Divine Comedy in the Tuscan vernacular of his time rather than in Latin, Florentine Dante Alighieri (1265-1361) is considered "the father of Italian." His creation of the standard Italian language would further help to establish Florence as the creative hub of the Renaissance.


• Another day at the office—When the Uffizi Gallery was originally built in 1560, it was as an administrative office building for officials in the Medici government (the word "uffizi" means "offices"). It opened to the public in 1769 (presumably, once all the office cubicles were cleared out) and became a national museum in 1865.


• A bridge too precious—Five out of the six bridges spanning the Arno River in Florence were blown up by retreating Germans in 1944. Why did the Ponte Vecchio (the Old Bridge) survive? Some credit German consul Gerhard Wolf for the bridge’s salvation; some say it was a brave shop assistant who disabled the mines on the bridge; and some say it was it was the Fuhrer himself, that he considered the bridge "too beautiful to bomb" after having visited Florence with Mussolini in 1938 (although it’s highly doubtful he was affected by Stendhal syndrome).


• Even the potholes were works of art—In 1339, Florence became the first city in Europe to have paved roads.


• Late-breaking scoop—In the late 1500s, the Medicis tasked Bernardo Buontalenti to come up with a special dessert for the visiting King of Spain. Because the creamy, frozen confection he came up with most closely resembles the dairy-based gelato we enjoy today, Florentine Buontalenti is widely considered the "father of modern gelato." Hey, Talenti, it’s right there in his name!


• A turn for the nurse—Along with a litany of Renaissance artists that could fill up a da Vinci notebook, a few notable figures were born in Florence that had nothing to do with painting or sculpting. They include Amerigo Vespucci— the Italian explorer and cartographer born in Florence in 1451, after whom the Americas were named—and Florence Nightingale. Hailing from a rich, well-connected British family, the nursing legend was born here in 1820 (and obviously, took her name from the city of her birth).


• But all he could play was Chopsticks—While he wasn’t born in Florence, Bartolomeo Cristofori (1655–1731) lived most of his life in the city so he gets a pass. Under the employment of Ferdinando de’ Medici, Cristofori would invent the modern piano, which was first known as the pianoforte, having evolved from the harpsichord.


• Never go against the family—Instead of rattling off names like Cosimo "the Elder" and Lorenzo "the Magnificent," let’s just lump them all together as "The Medici." This one family ruled Florence for some three centuries and were largely responsible for shepherding in the Italian Renaissance through their patronage of the arts from the 15th century onwards. We can also thank them for allowing us to peek into their private art collection—which is pretty much everything in the Uffizi Gallery and Pitti Palace, their old family home.


• Medici out, Mad Monk in—There was a brief period in Florence’s history beginning in 1494 when the Medici were temporarily driven from power (by the French)—and up stepped Girolamo Savonarola, a crazed Dominican friar from Ferrara, who would rule the city for the next four years. The "Mad Monk of Florence," as he is better known, convinced the inhabitants of Florence that their worldly possessions were leading them straight to hell, so anything of value—from fancy clothes and jewelry to furnishings, musical instruments, paintings and more—was taken from their homes, hauled into the main square, and a torch was set to the huge pile (this is history’s "bonfire of the vanities"). But the mad monk was only getting started. He closed all of Florence’s taverns; outlawed gambling, singing, and dancing; and made just about anything you can think of a capital crime (especially sodomy, which some speculate he had personal reasons why he couldn’t leave this one alone).
  
  By 1497, even the pope had enough of the "Mad Monk’s" increasingly violent and autocratic rule and attempted to excommunicate him. When that didn’t work, he threatened to excommunicate the entire city of Florence for supporting this nut. The Florentines eventually came to their senses and at the pope’s request, they arrested Savonarola, tortured him (careful not to injure his confession-signing arm), and dragged him to the main square, where the Mad Monk was engulfed in his personal bonfire. After a brief period of secular republican rule, the Medicis would return to power in 1513 and all was well again in La Bella Firenze, Cradle of the Renaissance.

Side effects of visiting Florence may include artistic ecstasy—discover why on our Tuscany & Umbria: Rustic Beauty in the Italian Heartland.