Stendhal syndrome, Stendhal's syndrome or Florence syndrome is a

psychosomatic Somatic symptom disorder, also known as somatoform disorder or somatization disorder, is chronic somatization. One or more chronic physical symptoms coincide with excessive and maladaptive thoughts, emotions, and behaviors connected to those symp ...

condition involving rapid heartbeat, confusion,

hallucination A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the compelling sense of reality. They are distinguishable from several related phenomena, such as dreaming ( REM sleep), which does not involve wakefulness; pse ...

s, and even

fainting Syncope , commonly known as fainting or passing out, is a loss of consciousness and muscle strength characterized by a fast onset, short duration, and spontaneous recovery. It is caused by a decrease in blood flow to the brain, typically from ...

, allegedly occurring when individuals become exposed to objects, artworks, or phenomena of great

beauty Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes them pleasure, pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, art and taste are the main subjects of aesthetics, one of the fie ...

The affliction is named after the 19th-century French author

Stendhal Marie-Henri Beyle (; 23 January 1783 – 23 March 1842), better known by his pen name Stendhal (, , ), was a French writer. Best known for the novels ''Le Rouge et le Noir'' ('' The Red and the Black'', 1830) and ''La Chartreuse de Parme'' ('' T ...

(

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

of Marie-Henri Beyle), who described his experience with the phenomenon during his 1817 visit to

Florence Florence ( ; ) is the capital city of the Italy, Italian region of Tuscany. It is also the most populated city in Tuscany, with 362,353 inhabitants, and 989,460 in Metropolitan City of Florence, its metropolitan province as of 2025. Florence ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

, in his book '' Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio''. When he visited the Basilica of Santa Croce, where

Niccolò Machiavelli Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (3 May 1469 – 21 June 1527) was a Florentine diplomat, author, philosopher, and historian who lived during the Italian Renaissance. He is best known for his political treatise '' The Prince'' (), writte ...

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6March 147518February 1564), known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspir ...

and

Galileo Galilei Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642), commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei ( , , ) or mononymously as Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a poly ...

are buried, he was overcome with profound emotion. Stendhal wrote: Although psychologists have long debated whether Stendhal syndrome exists, the apparent effects on some individuals are severe enough to warrant medical attention. The staff at Florence's Santa Maria Nuova hospital are accustomed to tourists suffering from dizzy spells or disorientation after viewing the statue of David, the artworks of the

Uffizi Gallery The Uffizi Gallery ( ; , ) is a prominent art museum adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in the Historic Centre of Florence in the region of Tuscany, Italy. One of the most important Italian museums and the most visited, it is also one of ...

, and other historic treasures of the Tuscan city. Though there are numerous accounts dating from the early 19th century, the phenomenon of people fainting while taking in Florentine art was first named in 1979, when it was described by Italian psychiatrist Graziella Magherini, who observed over a hundred similar cases among tourists. There is no evidence to define Stendhal syndrome as a specific

psychiatric disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...

, and it is not listed as a recognised condition in the ''

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders The ''Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders'' (''DSM''; latest edition: ''DSM-5-TR'', published in March 2022) is a publication by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the classification of mental disorders using a com ...

''; however, there is scientific evidence that the same cerebral areas involved in emotional responses are stimulated during exposure to art. A more recent account of the Stendhal syndrome was in 2018, when a visitor to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence suffered a

heart attack A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...

while admiring

Sandro Botticelli Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), better known as Sandro Botticelli ( ; ) or simply known as Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 1 ...

's ''

The Birth of Venus ''The Birth of Venus'' ( ) is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, probably executed in the mid-1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus (mythology), Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea ful ...

''.

The Scientific Stendhal Syndrome

The Scientific Stendhal Syndrome is a transient psychosomatic response characterized by intense physiological and emotional reactions (

tachycardia Tachycardia, also called tachyarrhythmia, is a heart rate that exceeds the normal resting rate. In general, a resting heart rate over 100 beats per minute is accepted as tachycardia in adults. Heart rates above the resting rate may be normal ...

vertigo Vertigo is a condition in which a person has the sensation that they are moving, or that objects around them are moving, when they are not. Often it feels like a spinning or swaying movement. It may be associated with nausea, vomiting, perspira ...

hyperventilation Hyperventilation is irregular breathing that occurs when the rate or tidal volume of breathing eliminates more carbon dioxide than the body can produce. This leads to hypocapnia, a reduced concentration of carbon dioxide dissolved in the blo ...

, or

crying Crying is the dropping of tears (or welling of tears in the eyes) in response to an emotional state or physical pain. Emotions that can lead to crying include sadness, anger, joy, and fear. Crying can also be caused by relief from a period ...

) triggered by exposure to scientific concepts, discoveries, or representations that challenge cognitive paradigms or evoke a perception of intellectual sublimity. Although not formally recognized in diagnostic manuals such as the DSM-5, the term is used by analogy with the classic Stendhal Syndrome (associated with art), extrapolating its framework to contexts of epistemological astonishment. Clinical manifestations include activation of the

autonomic nervous system The autonomic nervous system (ANS), sometimes called the visceral nervous system and formerly the vegetative nervous system, is a division of the nervous system that operates viscera, internal organs, smooth muscle and glands. The autonomic nervo ...

(15-20% increase in

cortisol Cortisol is a steroid hormone in the glucocorticoid class of hormones and a stress hormone. When used as medication, it is known as hydrocortisone. Cortisol is produced in many animals, mainly by the ''zona fasciculata'' of the adrenal corte ...

according to Schurtz studies, 2014) and activation of the anterior insula (related to interoceptive awareness) and

dorsomedial prefrontal cortex The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC or DMPFC is a section of the prefrontal cortex in some species' brain anatomy. It includes portions of Brodmann areas BA8, BA9, BA10, BA24 and BA32, although some authors identify it specifically w ...

(linked to

self-reflection Self-reflection is the ability to witness and evaluate one's own cognitive, emotional, and behavioural processes. In psychology, other terms used for this self-observation include "reflective awareness" and "reflective consciousness", which or ...

), detected through

fMRI Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI (fMRI) measures brain activity by detecting changes associated with blood flow. This technique relies on the fact that cerebral blood flow and neuronal activation are coupled. When an area o ...

. The release of

dopamine Dopamine (DA, a contraction of 3,4-dihydroxyphenethylamine) is a neuromodulatory molecule that plays several important roles in cells. It is an organic chemical of the catecholamine and phenethylamine families. It is an amine synthesized ...

in the

nucleus accumbens The nucleus accumbens (NAc or NAcc; also known as the accumbens nucleus, or formerly as the ''nucleus accumbens septi'', Latin for ' nucleus adjacent to the septum') is a region in the basal forebrain rostral to the preoptic area of the hypo ...

(

mesolimbic pathway The mesolimbic pathway, sometimes referred to as the reward pathway, is a dopaminergic pathway in the brain. The pathway connects the ventral tegmental area in the midbrain to the ventral striatum of the basal ganglia in the forebrain. The v ...

) suggests a reward mechanism associated with resolving

cognitive dissonance In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is described as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. Being confronted by situations that challenge this dissonance may ultimately result in some ...

when faced with revolutionary ideas. Triggering factors range from unification theories (e.g., Einstein's field equations) to visualizations of cosmic scales (e.g., Hubble images), with higher prevalence in individuals with high openness to experience ( Big Five) and training in

STEM Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

disciplines. Keltner's studies (2023) propose that this phenomenon emerges from the dissonance between the finite (individual) and the infinite (cosmos), activating evolutionary responses of "tonic immobility" to stimuli that exceed adaptive processing capacity. Implications: Unlike "moral elevation," it lacks a prosocial component, focusing on the confrontation between the known and the unfathomable. Its study provides insights into the interaction between emotion and cognition in the construction of knowledge. Case study: In 2017, a group of MIT researchers documented that 18% of planetarium visitors experienced "extreme emotion" when viewing representations of the Big Bang or black holes. The Scientific Stendhal Syndrome is not a pathology, but a manifestation of the human capacity to marvel at the beauty and complexity of the world.

References

External links

* Graziella Magherini.
La Sindrome di Stendhal
'. Firenze, Ponte Alle Grazie, 1989.
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{{Authority control Somatic symptom disorders Psychopathological syndromes Stendhal

The Scientific Stendhal Syndrome

See also

References

External links