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Florence hospital staff are used to tourists collapsing from beauty

Ellsworth Toohey
Jul 13, 2026
∙ Paid
Olof Johan Södermark / Public domain (via Wikipedia)

Staff at Florence’s Santa Maria Nuova hospital are accustomed to tourists arriving with dizzy spells and disorientation after viewing Michelangelo’s David or the Botticellis in the Uffizi. The condition has a name: Stendhal syndrome, a psychosomatic reaction to great art that can include rapid heartbea…

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