Cards with wishes of eternal loyalty, cakes decorated with strawberries and cuddly pillows, all in the shape of a heart, with or without a dart, flood the Valentine's Day markets every year. All this is fine, but the familiar symbol of the heart with its fiery red color, since when does this symbol of love exist that certainly has nothing to do with human anatomy?
The most unusual and dubious theory holds that it comes from the Sylphium, a type of plant that grew on the coast of North Africa, near the Greek colony of Cyrene. It is even said that the ancient Greeks, as well as the Romans, used it in addition to being aromatic and food, as a miraculous cough syrup, but mainly as an aphrodisiac and contraceptive. And it was so popular that, according to ancient writers, the plant went from popularity to extinction in 1The century AD Its seed bore a striking resemblance to the modern heart symbol, leading it to be associated with sex and love. Notably, the ancient city of Cyrene grew rich from the cultivation and trade of sylphium, to the point that it was also included in its money.
Another theory wants the heart to have taken its shape from ivy leaves. The ivy certainly symbolizes eternal faith and devotion, the sylph theory is interesting, but the prevailing theory wants the heart symbol to find its roots in the Middle Ages.
According to scholars Pierre Vinken and Martin Kemp, Galen and Aristotle were the first to postulate in their writings that the heart had three chambers with a small depression in the middle. Later, during the Middle Ages, artists and doctors wanting to depict the heart based on ancient medical texts, represented it with the symbol we know today. Chivalrous romantic love passed into Renaissance art, most famously the symbol of the Sacred Heart of Christ and entering playing cards. From 18The and 19The century, the symbol had now become a recurring motif in dedications, ravasaki, but also Valentine's cards.
Now, as for cards, these became a custom in the USA and England in the 18th centuryου century, but some legends attribute the first use of the card to Saint Valentine himself. He is said to have been a priest and doctor in Rome, according to others a bishop in Terni. Be that as it may, Saint Valentine was martyred and executed on February 14, 240 AD. So it is said that while he was imprisoned, he fell in love with the daughter of his guard, whom he cured of blindness. The night before his execution, he wrote her a little note with the dedication "your valentine".
Of course, Valentine's Day took many years to be celebrated for the first time. On the 5thThe century AD, Pope Gelasius I needed a new, convenient feast to replace the Roman festival of Lupercalia. Taking place in mid-February, the Lupercalia were known for euphoria, but also especially fertility rituals. Gelasius, wanting to put an end to this pagan custom, instituted a day of commemoration for Saint Valentine, although 14the February was not a day to celebrate love. Eventually, the day became fully associated with love, romance and the Saint, in the late 14th centuryου century with Geoffrey Chaucer's poem, The Parlement of Foules, having his hand in it, which you can find here.