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by pvaldes
1053 days ago
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Always heard about Florence syndrome as Stendhal's, but never did click before. My bet is that in the future somebody will eventually find a direct relationship between the symptoms and the chemicals used to clean the museums or preserve antique valuable pieces from the attack of insects and molds. As long as the ventilation systems (and insurance?) improve should be more and more rare. |
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The name was given with reference to a passage in Stendhal's writing about a visit to Santa Croce in 1817, by the psychiatrist that "invented" it and wrote a book about it (Dr. Graziella Magherini).
Personally I always found it improper, as the original experience as described by Stendhal was a temporary and very "light" mental confusion, that could have well been due to heat or low pressure or a similar physical reason coincidentally happening at the same time he was in awe for the art before his eyes, while the stories in the book are about patients that had severe symptoms and that took days, weeks or even months to recover.
There is an interview to the doctor, mentioned on the Wikipedia page, archived here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110714081259/http://www.metrop...
that is worth reading.
The "chemicals" theory is improbable because at the time the book was published it considered around 100 cases she attributed to the syndrome over a 10 years period, so 10 cases per year to be compared with the millions of tourists per year in Florence (even in the '70's), and it is not like in Florence museums different substances are used than in the rest of Italy.
Whether this syndrome actually exists or not, is up to debate, but surely the doctor found a very catchy name for it.