The iconic form of the heart – you know, that! – It is everywhere. The symbol of love, in reality, does not resemble the human organ at all. Why? The fault could be by Aristotle, or perhaps of a plant.
Scholars believe that the mystery of how the symbol of the heart has acquired its form begins in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, mistakenly believed that the human heart had three cavities. In reality, the heart has four rooms that pump blood rich in oxygen inside and outside.
Pierre Vinken, author of “The Shape of the Heart”, wrote that the anatomists who illustrated Aristotle’s wrong notion on how the human heart was made could have contributed to the creation of the form. By the 16th century, when the anatomical error was correct, the icon was now so popular that the image remained unchanged.
Silfio theory: an ancient plant as inspiration
Another plausible theory includes the shape of the heart that could reflect seed pods of an ancient type of silfium plant. This plant served by a primitive form of birth control in the Greek colony of Cyrene. The ancient Greeks and Romans used the silfium not only as a spice and medicine, but also for its contraceptive properties. The resemblance between silhfing pods and today’s symbol of the heart has led many to speculate that the associations of the plant with love and sex may have helped to popularize the symbol.
Historically, the first known representation of a heart as a symbol of love appears in a thirteenth -century French manuscript entitled “Roman de la Poire” (the novel of the Pera). This manuscript depicts a lover who offers his heart to his beloved, one of the first visual representations of the offer of the heart as a symbol of love. Giotto, in 1305, also painted the charity that offers his heart to Jesus in the Scrovegni chapel in Padua, significantly influencing the representations of the heart in the following periods.
The symbol of the heart in different cultures
In different cultures, the symbol of the heart has taken on very different meanings, often far from the modern romantic idea. In ancient Greece and Rome, the stylized form could derive from the pods of the silfium plant, connected to erotic love and contraception, while philosophers like Aristotle considered the heart the seat of emotions and life.
In the medieval Islamic and medium-oriental tradition, the heart is a profound spiritual concept: in sufi texts it represents the center of soul and divine love, without a precise graphic form, often evoked only through calligraphy or geometric motifs.
In Christian Europe, during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the heart assumes a religious role with the sacred heart of Jesus, a symbol of compassion and sacrifice, represented with flames and thorns, while parallel the stylized version in the manuscripts and playing cards, linked to courteous love, begins to circulate.
In India and in oriental cultures, the heart is above all a spiritual energy point: the heart of the heart, Anahata, is depicted as a green lotus with twelve petals and represents universal love and connection.
In ancient China, the heart, called Xin, was not linked to the romantic feeling but to the mind and spirit, considered the center of thought and morality, represented by the character 心. Only in modern times, with the spread of press and pop culture, the form of the heart as we know it today has become a universal and simplified symbol of love and affection, free from its botanical, religious or philosophical origins.
Over the centuries, the shape of the heart has stopped being only an anatomical or botany interpretation: it has become a cultural icon in all respects. From medieval playing cards to the emojis of modern messages, the stylized heart survived revolutions, religions and fashions, always maintaining the same symbolic power. Today, it is so rooted in the collective imagination that it does not even need to explain what it represents: a simple heart is enough to express love, passion or affection, without the need for words.
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