Do You Get Severely Affected By Art? You Could Be Experiencing Stendhal Syndrome

For some people, seeing art can give them a kind of “art attack” known as Stendhal syndrome, or Florence syndrome. It’s a psychosomatic response to exceptional beauty, hence why Florence, Italy, the home of many great artworks, gets a hat-tip. 

Symptoms of Stendhal syndrome can vary, but typically include things like increased heart rate, dizziness, fainting, and even hallucinations. First coined in 1989, some have questioned its authenticity, but regardless of its source, there have been several cases of people requiring medical assistance after seeing beautiful pieces of art.

Why is it called Stendhal Syndrome?

Dr Graziella Magherini first coined the name Stendhal Syndrome in honor of the 19th-century romantic writer Marie-Henri Beyle, widely known as Stendhal. Beyle had written of powerful sensations after visiting the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence, where several magnificent artworks are housed, saying, “I had reached that point of emotion that meets the heavenly sensations given by the Fine Arts and passionate feelings. Leaving Santa Croce, I had an irregular heartbeat, life was ebbing out of me, I walked with the fear of falling”.

It was this writing that inspired Magherini’s identification of a similar symptom profile among tourists visiting the city. Working at Florence’s Santa Maria Nuova hospital, she identified over 106 cases of what she believed to be Stendhal syndrome among hospitalized tourists. They were all exhibiting some kind of acute psychiatric or physiological reaction after visiting some of the city’s most memorable artworks. Crucially, they were from overseas and not Italian, a group of people who seem to be immune to the effects of this syndrome.

Why do people experience Stendhal syndrome? And why specifically in Florence?

A study published in the journal European Psychiatry in 2021 identified some of the factors that may prime a person to experience Stendhal syndrome. It seems that travel really can be the perfect storm, especially for solo travelers, as it raises your expectations and tires you out just the right amount to make seeing the anatomical precision of Michelangelo’s David too much to handle.

“Victims are typically impressionable, single people between 26-40 years old, who are stressed by travel and may be struggling with jet lag,” wrote the authors. “For art lovers, the thrill of arriving somewhere like Florence that gathers so much famous art is like meeting all your heroes at once. This strange aesthetic sickness is surely evidence of the special power of Renaissance art.”

The effect of being overwhelmed into an acute crisis isn’t isolated to Florence, however, and another similar phenomenon has been described among people visiting Paris. Known as – and this will come as no surprise – Paris syndrome, it was first described in 1986 by Japanese psychiatrist Hiroaki Ota. He had observed several people who, after making the long journey to see Paris, came down with some combination of dizziness, tachycardia, palpitations, shortness of breath, and psychiatric symptoms.

A reminder that, however good the movie selection, it’s worth trying to squeeze in a few Zzzs on long-haul travel.