It takes its name from the French writer Marie-Henri Beyle, better known by the pen-name Stendhal, who, in 1817, wrote of his trip to the Tuscan capital: 'I was in a sort of ecstasy from the idea of being in Florence… I was seized with a fierce palpitation of the heart… the well-spring of life was dried up within me, and I walked in constant fear of falling to the ground.'
Stendhal syndrome is said to be a psychosomatic condition brought on by exposure to Florence's embarrassment of artistic riches. Were the chicken liver crostini from lunch coming back to bite me? Probably.įor some visitors to Florence, though, these are the symptoms of an acute illness that has nothing to do with food poisoning and everything, it would appear, to do with the city's abundance of great art. My stomach tightened and my heart raced my knees buckled and my palms felt clammy.
Gazing up at Leonardo da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi in the rarefied corridors of Florence's Uffizi Gallery, I began to feel unusual.