The researchers found that this syndrome, located in Italy, and often described as the capital of works of art, is found in tourists who visit the place rather than locals. People with Stendhal syndrome experience dizziness, fainting, confusion, fast heartbeat, low blood pressure, and hallucinations. It can be experienced in front of a single fascinating work of art, or it can be experienced in front of more than one work of art. People with Stendhal Syndrome internalize the artwork they admire and make unrealistic interpretations of it.

An Italian psychiatrist disclosed it thanks to the publication of a book in which she described more than 100 cases. This is Graziella Margherini, head of the mental health service of the Arcispedale Santa Maria Nuova in Florence. In 1979 wrote “The Stendhal Syndrome. The malaise of the traveller in the face of the greatness of art”. The investigation considered the care of tourists who went to the nearby Florentine hospital after leaving the Uffizi and in the throes of singular illnesses. In the study, primarily males, aged between 25 and 40, well-educated, solo travellers from Western Europe or North America, were observed and showed great interest in the artistic aspect of their itinerary. The onset of the discomfort occurred shortly after they arrived in Florence and occurred inside the museums while observing the works of art.

Regarding her research, Graziella Magherini states that “the analysis of Stendhal’s syndrome has highlighted the complex psychosomatic interactions that can be activated in some individuals, with particular predisposing psychic conditions, when the environmental context favours the aspects of uprooting over the own lifestyle habits. For example, beauty and the work of art can strike the deep states of the user’s mind and bring back to the surface situations and structures that are normally repressed”.

What are the disorders related to Stendhal syndrome? “In the study”, continues the scholar “, we observed different shapes. Most of the tourists showed panic attacks, and some showed disturbances of the content and form of thought with delusional intuitions and perceptions associated with disturbances of sense/perceptions with auditory hallucinations, still, others perceived illusionary phenomena and cenestophrenias. Others presented affective disturbances, with mood oriented towards a depressive sense with holotimic contents of guilt and ruin or, vice versa, towards a manic sense with euphoria and manifestations of ecstasy. Still, others had symptoms consistent with current diagnostic criteria for panic disorder, with acute crises of free or situational anxiety. And finally, some, in addition to a sense of profound disturbance, perceived the looming city, almost an enemy, as if they felt persecuted not by an entity, but by the city itself”.

Michelangelo and Renaissance art

Carried out in Florence, the study aimed to observe the disturbances caused by the vision of Renaissance works. In particular, the divine Michelangelo is the artist who, more than others, has contributed to shaking souls, causing the so-called Stendhal syndrome. Graziella Magherini states, “in my studies on Michelangelo, I focused above all on David. David has exceptional characteristics. In the first place, he possesses extraordinary anatomical beauty and simultaneously is a biblical hero and, for the city, a civic hero. Above all, what strikes anyone is the aesthetic side: it is a beautiful nude that manages to influence the soul of some people, making them in some way excited, depressed and so on, thus influencing the emotionality of the viewer, in one sense or another”.