Heidelberg University Library, Heidelberg, Germany.ĭuring the 12th and 13th centuries, the heart found a home in the feudal courts of Europe. Artist unknown, “Herr Alram von Gresten: Minne Gespräch,” from the Codex Manesse. Wearing a wedding ring on that finger goes back all the way to the Romans. In the medieval period in Salisbury, England, during the church ceremony in the liturgy, the groom was told to place a ring on the bride’s fourth finger because of that vein.
Even though this idea was based upon incorrect knowledge of the human anatomy, it persisted. The ancient Romans held a curious belief about the heart - that there was a vein extending from the fourth finger of the left hand directly to the heart. Illustration from the novel Manon Lescaut by Antoine François Prévost, iStock. They chose to honor it by putting it on a coin. Why in the world would anyone have put that on a coin? Silphium was known for its contraceptive properties, and the ancient Libyans got rich from exporting it throughout the known world.
However, it’s what I call the non-heart heart, because it is stamped with the outline of the seed from the silphium plant, a now-extinct species of giant fennel. Dating back to 510-490 BC, it’s the oldest-known image of the heart shape. In the ancient Roman city of Cyrene - near what is now Shahhat, Libya - the coin ( above) was discovered. Venus, the goddess of love, was credited - or blamed - for setting hearts on fire with the aid of her son Cupid, whose darts aimed at the human heart were always overpowering. Sanctuary of Demeter and Persephone, Cyrene.Īmong the ancient Romans, the association between the heart and love was commonplace. Drachm depicting a silphium seed pod, ca. Aristotle expanded the role of the heart even further, granting it supremacy in all human processes. Plato argued for the dominant role of the chest in love and in negative emotions of fear, anger, rage and pain. Greek philosophers agreed, more or less, that the heart was linked to our strongest emotions, including love. She lived during the 7th century BC on the island of Lesbos surrounded by female disciples for whom she wrote passionate poems, now known only in fragments, like the following: Love shook my heart, Like the wind on the mountain Troubling the oak-trees. Among the earliest known Greek examples, the poet Sappho agonized over her own “mad heart” quaking with love. Brooch from the Fishpool Hoard, 1400-1464, British Museum, London, England.Īs far back as the ancient Greeks, lyric poetry identified the heart with love in verbal conceits. I wanted to answer two questions: “How did the human heart become transformed into the iconic form we know today?” and “How long has the heart been associated with love?” Artist unknown. From that moment on, the figure of the heart pursued me. It quickly dawned on me that the symmetrical shape is a far cry from the ungainly lumpish organ inside us. That day, I noticed the heart’s two upper lobes and its V-shaped bottom point as if I were seeing them for the first time.
I was particularly attracted to a heart-shaped brooch ( below, one of the heart brooches from the hoard). In 2011, I went to the British Museum in London to see a collection of 15th-century artifacts, which included gold coins and jewelry that were part of the Fishpool Hoard found in England in 1966. Historian Marilyn Yalom tells us how the anatomical organ became the symbol that we all know today. But we also know the real heart looks nothing like it. We see the familiar symbol everywhere - in text messages, signs, cakes, clothing, and more. Illustration from The Romance of Alexander, Bodleian Library, Oxford, England. Jehan de Grise and his workshop, "The Heart Offering," 1338-1344.