A History of the Heart Symbol

How did the heart symbol take shape and come to symbolize romantic love?

We can trace the form back to the leaves of the peepal tree in ancient India, Egypt, and the symbol on a coin of ancient Cyrene, a Roman and Greek city in present day Libya. The rulers of Cyrene placed the familiar shape of the seed of the silphium plant, a now-extinct variety of fennel that was used as a contraceptive and the sale of which made them wealthy, on their coins. However, we have since made these associations. The heart shape didn’t actually become connected with love until the 15th century.

Cyrene coin, 5th-6th century, in what is now Libya.

In the mid-13th century, French writer Thibaut created a miniature in which a man gives a pear, considered by some the first heart, to a woman. Roughly 50 years later Giotto painted Caritas (Charity), depicting a woman giving Jesus what looks like an upside-down, pear or pine cone-shaped heart. The aorta is visible pointing downward.

“Le Roman de la Poire” (The Romance of the Pear), 1250s.

The inverted heart was also used in different traditions. Portuguese necklace, my photo, 2019.

Jehan de Grise and his workshop, “The Heart Offering,” 1338-1344. Illustration from The Romance of Alexander, Bodleian Library, Oxford, England.

In the14th century physician Guido da Vigevano wrote a treatise on dissection, making many anatomical drawings with the heart as we know it. His drawings were similar to Aristotle’s. Both asserted that the heart is connected with love and pleasure, leading to the medieval idea of romantic love.

The troubadours in France in the 13th and 14th centuries promoted the idea of courtly love and chivalry through their poetry and song. A troubadour would pledge his whole heart to one woman. Several theories about the development of the troubadours exist. The popularity of Ovid’s Amores and Ars amatoria, erotic poems, in France in preceding centuries is one. There is an interesting possible connection between the word troubadour and the Arabic word for music which would’ve come to France from Andalusia, Spain.

The Heart Offering from 1338-44 is considered the first actual representation of romantic love. A woman gives her heart, shaped as we know it, to a man who holds his hand over his own heart. From the 1400s onward the heart became a widely-used symbol in manuscripts, jewelry, coats of arms, playing cards, wooden chests, sword handles, burial sites, woodcuts, engravings and printer’s marks. And so, it was natural to incorporate hearts into embroidery work, to be clothed in love and care.