(ANSA) - The emotional effect on visitors of Michelangelo's stunning David statue is to be gauged in a year-long study in Florence.
Florentine psychiatrist Graziella Magherini says she aims to "assess the emotional impact of the sculpture on cultivated onlookers."
Magherini thinks a certain kind of visitor "establishes a direct relationship" with the masterpiece.
She has dubbed this bond 'The David Syndrome' - similar to the dizzy and disorientating 'Stendhal Syndrome' Magherini identified in the late '70s. The psychiatrist, who is president of Italy's Art and Psychology asociation, believes the David statue may cause symptoms of "a more rarefied but equally mindbending" variety.
She will discuss her theory at a symposium on Monday charting the statue's history and its elevation to iconic status in art and the media. The conference, which will take place in the Accademia gallery where David stands, winds up celebrations marking the 500th anniversary of the great statue's unveiling.
Florence's artistic superintendent Antonio Paolucci is a member of Magherini's association and one of the art experts backing her study. Stendhal's Syndrome is a psychosomatic illness that
causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and even hallucinations when the individual is exposed to an overdose of beautiful art.
At least once a month, foreign tourists have been rushed to Florence's Santa Maria Nuova Hospital suffering from an attack of the syndrome. It is named after the famous 19th century French author Stendhal (pseudonym of Marie-Henri Beyle), who gave an early detailed description of experiencing the phenomenon during his 1817 visit to Florence.
He described the disturbing episode in his book Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio. Although there are many descriptions of people becoming dizzy and fainting while taking in the art in Florence, especially at the famed Uffizi Gallery, from the early 19th century on, this was not described as a specific syndrome until Magherini wrote it up in 1979.
Magherini observed and described more than 100 similar cases among tourists and visitors in Florence, the cradle of the Renaissance.
The psychiatrist recently said that more than half the patients are tourists from European countries.
Italians, on the other hand, appeared to be immune to the condition, along with the Japanese, "who are apparently so organized in their sight-seeing that they rarely have time for emotional attacks."
