Stendhal syndrome

When he visited the Basilica of Santa Croce, where Niccolò Machiavelli, Michelangelo and Galileo Galilei are buried, he was overcome with profound emotion.

[3]Although psychologists have long debated whether Stendhal syndrome exists,[1] the apparent effects on some individuals are severe enough to warrant medical attention.

[4] 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, and other historic treasures of the Tuscan city.

[1] 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.

[5] A more recent account of the Stendhal syndrome was in 2018, when a visitor to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence suffered a heart attack while admiring Sandro Botticelli's The Birth of Venus.