“Life was drained from me. I walked with the fear of falling.”
—Stendhal, Naples and Florence: A Journey from Milan to Reggio, 1817
In 1989 psychiatrist Graziella Margherini published the book La Sindrome di Stendhal, chronicling numerous incidents wherein tourists experience sensory overload related to the exuberant art and architecture while visitng the city of Florence. The Uffizi Gallery, a popular locale for victims of this affliction, houses a recovery bed in a small room off of the gallery’s main corridor for those in need of rest or further care at nearby Santa Maria Nuova Hospital.
