One of the most unusual psychological disorders that exist is the so-called Stendhal Syndrome, also known as Florence Syndrome or hyperkulturemia. The trigger for this disease is exposure to large amounts of beautiful and beautiful works of art, which are concentrated in a single place (for example an art gallery or the city of Florence itself in Italy, hence its name).
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When exposed to concentrated works of art, sufferers experience a wide range of symptoms including physical and emotional anxiety (rapid and intense heartbeat, dizziness often resulting in panic attacks and / or fainting), feelings of confusion and disorientation, nausea, dissociative episodes, temporary amnesia, paranoia, and - in extreme cases - hallucinations and temporary 'insanity'. The syndrome has also been applied to other situations in which people feel totally overwhelmed when they are in the presence of what they perceive as "immense beauty" (it can be something from the natural world like a beautiful sunset). The effects are relatively short-lived and do not appear to require medical intervention.
This syndrome was first named after the 19th century French author Henri-Marie Beyle (1783-1842), better known by his pseudonym “Stendhal” at the age of 34 (in 1817), described in detail his negative experiences (in his book Naples and Florence: A Trip from Milan to Reggio) after seeing the Florentine art of the Italian Renaissance (and hence its alternative name as the Florence Syndrome). When Stendhal visited the Cathedral of Santa Croce in Florence and first witnessed Giotto's famous ceiling frescoes, what he saw so shocked him on an emotional level that he wrote:
"I was in a kind of ecstasy, of the idea of being in Florence, near the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty ... I reached the point where one meets heavenly sensations ... everything He spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if only I could forget. I had heart palpitations, what in Berlin they call "nerves". Life was drained from me. I walked in fear of falling. ".
Following Stendhal's writings, there have been hundreds of cases of people experiencing similar effects, particularly at the famous Uffizi Gallery in Florence, and they have often been referred to as the "Tourism sickness" or "Art sickness." . However, it wasn't until 1979 that the condition was given the name Stendhal syndrome by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini, who at the time was the head of psychiatry at Florence Santa Maria Nuova Hospital. She began to observe that many tourists visiting Florence seemed to be overcome with a series of symptoms including temporary panic attacks and apparent insanity lasting two or three days..
Based on his recollection of reading Stenhal's account, he named this temporary disorder Stendhal syndrome. He later documented 106 similar cases admitted to hospital in Florence between 1977 and 1986 in his 1989 book "La sindrome di Stendhal." In his book he describes the detailed cases of these people who after seeing the famous paintings or sculptures had serious emotional reactions including high anxiety and / or psychotic episodes. She explains that psychological disorders are typically associated with "a latent mental disorder or psychiatric disturbance that manifests as a reaction to paintings or other masterpieces." The 106 cases were classified into three types:
They also reported that 38% of Type I individuals had a psychiatric history, while more than half (53%) of Type II did not. To date, there are relatively few published cases in the academic literature. The most recent case is that written by Dr. Timothy Nicholson and his colleagues, who published a case report in the British Medical Journal explaining the case of a 72-year-old man who developed a transient paranoid psychosis after a Florence cultural tour.
Many professionals do not finish giving credit to this syndrome and wonder if it really cannot be caused by the exhaustion of the visitor and not so much of the beauty before the works.
In addition, they also indicate whether the fact that it is almost undeniably associated with Florence, the place where the cases have been described, should not be doubted, since the gossip speak that it is a way of promoting the artistic beauty of said city.
Amâncio, EJ (2005). Dostoevsky and Stendhal Syndrome. Arq Neuropsiquiatric
Bamforth, I. (2010). Stendhal syndrome. British Journal of General Practice, December 945-946.
Fried, RI (1998). Stendhal's syndrome: Hyperkulturemia. Ohio Medicine
Nicholson, TRJ, Pariante, C., and McLoughlin, D. (2009). Important clinical lesson reminder: Stendhal syndrome: a case of cultural overload. BMJ case reports
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