: The term frequently appears in Italian songs (like those by Ricchi e Poveri) to describe the bittersweet, overwhelming feeling of falling in love that feels like a "sweet illness". Marilena Panarelli, Per cacciar la malinconia delle femine
: It was classified as a form of melancholy . Symptoms included a pale complexion, insomnia, loss of appetite (leading to emaciation), and a "disturbed pulse rate" that spiked when the beloved's name was mentioned. Malattia d'amore
In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, physicians treated love not as a metaphor, but as a pathological condition of the "estimative faculty". : The term frequently appears in Italian songs
: His Canzoniere is a masterclass in the "failing search for self-possession" caused by obsessive love, depicting it as a "fatal multiplicity" that obstructs the mind. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, physicians treated
