le sydrome de stehndal
Ellie mentioned something very interesting called the "Stendahl's" after my last post. I looked it up and think its equal measures of fascinating and disturbing.
"In Tuscany they have a term for it. They call it 'Stendhal's syndrome' because the 19th-century French novelist is said to have been the first to write about the dizzying disorientation some tourists experience when they encounter masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance."
-Phil Kukielski, "In Umbria, pottery becomes high art," The Tallahassee Democrat, September 1, 2002
***
"Mary came to Florence from New York to fulfill a dream. She left here after four days, all of them spent in the psychiatric ward of a hospital.
The city drove Mary mad.
But the 34-year-old teacher, on her first tour of Europe, was not an isolated case.
Crowded Florence, cradle of the Renaissance, a city where palaces and monuments submerge the visitor, where each stone has a story, each corner a legend, is literally driving some tourists out of their mind.
A team of Italian medical researchers has labeled the temporary amnesia and disorientation of these patients "The Stendhal Syndrome" after the French novelist and writer whose real name was Marie Henri Beyle (1783-1842). For decades, the malaise was known as the "tourist disease." Stendhal, visiting Florence for the first time in 1817, suffered a mild attack of the madness."
-James O'Reilly, "Beautiful and unspoiled indonesia can turn into a trial for travelers," Chicago Tribune, September 7, 1986
***
But I especially identified with this one, written by the french novelist from whom the name is derived:
"I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty ... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations ... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves.' Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.''
"In Tuscany they have a term for it. They call it 'Stendhal's syndrome' because the 19th-century French novelist is said to have been the first to write about the dizzying disorientation some tourists experience when they encounter masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance."
-Phil Kukielski, "In Umbria, pottery becomes high art," The Tallahassee Democrat, September 1, 2002
***
"Mary came to Florence from New York to fulfill a dream. She left here after four days, all of them spent in the psychiatric ward of a hospital.
The city drove Mary mad.
But the 34-year-old teacher, on her first tour of Europe, was not an isolated case.
Crowded Florence, cradle of the Renaissance, a city where palaces and monuments submerge the visitor, where each stone has a story, each corner a legend, is literally driving some tourists out of their mind.
A team of Italian medical researchers has labeled the temporary amnesia and disorientation of these patients "The Stendhal Syndrome" after the French novelist and writer whose real name was Marie Henri Beyle (1783-1842). For decades, the malaise was known as the "tourist disease." Stendhal, visiting Florence for the first time in 1817, suffered a mild attack of the madness."
-James O'Reilly, "Beautiful and unspoiled indonesia can turn into a trial for travelers," Chicago Tribune, September 7, 1986
***
But I especially identified with this one, written by the french novelist from whom the name is derived:
"I was in a sort of ecstasy, from the idea of being in Florence, close to the great men whose tombs I had seen. Absorbed in the contemplation of sublime beauty ... I reached the point where one encounters celestial sensations ... Everything spoke so vividly to my soul. Ah, if I could only forget. I had palpitations of the heart, what in Berlin they call 'nerves.' Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.''