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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday! Since we mentioned Alexandra of Bavaria, the princess

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Speaker 1: who believed she had swallowed a glass piano, on one

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Speaker 1: of this week's episodes, we are bringing our episode on

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Speaker 1: her and on the glass delusion that affected her as

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Speaker 1: today's Saturday classic. This episode originally came out on April 24th, 2013,

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Speaker 1: only a few weeks after we joined the show. Also,

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Speaker 1: I will say I characterize myself as an anxious, neurotic

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Speaker 1: person in this, and I will say after many years

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Speaker 1: of working on this, that is less true than it

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Speaker 1: was in 2013. So enjoy. Welcome to Stuff You Missed

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Speaker 1: in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. iHeartRadio. Hello and

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Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I am Tracy V. Wilson. And

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Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frey. And today we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: a very curious case of a delusion that doesn't really

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Speaker 1: exist anymore. Princess Alexandra Amalia of Bavaria was part of

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Speaker 1: the House of Wittelsbach, which ruled Bavaria for more than

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Speaker 1: 700 years until the early 20th century. She was born

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Speaker 1: on August 26, 1826, and was one of nine children.

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Speaker 1: Most of these were pretty notable royal people, and she

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Speaker 1: has plenty of relatives who were a lot more famous

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Speaker 1: or maybe infamous than she was. One of them that

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Speaker 1: jumps out is her nephew, Ludwig II, who was also

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Speaker 1: called Mad King Ludwig. He was known for deeply eccentric

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Speaker 1: behavior and for a fairytale castle that he built and

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Speaker 1: for his suspicious death. So Katie and Sarah did a

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Speaker 1: podcast on all of that back in 2010, and they

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Speaker 1: brought up Alexandra's own dubious claim to fame in that episode,

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Speaker 1: which is her belief that she had swallowed a glass piano.

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Speaker 1: Which is quite something to believe. It is, and a

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Speaker 1: little context might help us all wrap our heads around

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Speaker 1: this very particular delusion. So for familial background, the princess's

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Speaker 1: father was Ludwig I of Bavaria, and he was known

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Speaker 1: for being a bad poet, a really great patron of

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Speaker 1: the arts, and a notorious womanizer. So he sounds like

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Speaker 1: a lot of fun. He had many affairs, unfortunately, and

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Speaker 1: decorated a room in the palace with portraits of beautiful women.

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Speaker 1: And he also had a large birthmark on his forehead,

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Speaker 1: and that's actually left out of most depictions of him.

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Speaker 1: Her mother was Therese of Saxe-Hildberghausen, and she married Ludwig

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Speaker 1: on October 12, 1810, and their wedding festival sparked the

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Speaker 1: tradition that has led to today's Oktoberfest. Therese had a

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Speaker 1: hand in ruling the kingdom, and the people were extremely

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Speaker 1: fond of her, especially as she put up with all

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Speaker 1: of Ludwig's affairs. She got a lot of sympathy from people.

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Speaker 1: Alexandra's father left the throne pretty abruptly. He had started

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Speaker 1: a really public affair with Lola Montes, and she was

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Speaker 1: an Irish woman who was pretending to be a Spanish aristocrat.

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Speaker 1: The people of Munich hated her. She was coarse, and

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Speaker 1: she swore, and she was disrespectful to the queen, who,

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Speaker 1: as we just said, they really loved. And she seemed

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Speaker 1: to have a really big influence on the king's opinions. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 1: the king had given her a title, money, and a job.

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Speaker 1: and a home, so she was super unpopular. And in

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Speaker 1: the wake of the affair, Ludwig abdicated the throne and

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Speaker 1: Alexandra's brother succeeded him. Her brother ruled as Maximilian II

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Speaker 1: from 1848 to 1864. Often this is portrayed as the

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Speaker 1: king left the throne because of the affair, and that

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Speaker 1: was really just one piece of the puzzle. There were

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Speaker 1: other things going on. There were other revolts going on

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Speaker 1: against the monarchy in other parts of Europe at the time. Plus,

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Speaker 1: Ludwig had a pretty liberal reputation when he ascended to

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Speaker 1: the throne, and people were disappointed that the decisions that

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Speaker 1: he made as king didn't really match up with what

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Speaker 1: they had expected of him when he rose to power.

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Speaker 1: They also didn't really like the decisions that he was making,

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Speaker 1: which they attributed to Lola's influence. So it wasn't just

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Speaker 1: that he had had this scandalous affair going on. There

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Speaker 1: were other things that led him to abdicate. That was

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Speaker 1: just one of the big items that people can easily

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Speaker 1: point to. Right. And speaking of Lola, a mob burned

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Speaker 1: down her house after the abdication and she ended up

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Speaker 1: fleeing and running to London. So all of this happened

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Speaker 1: when Alexander was about 22. She was the only one

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Speaker 1: of her siblings apart from one who died in infancy

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Speaker 1: who never got married, and only one of her siblings

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Speaker 1: hadn't yet gotten married when all of this happened. So

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Speaker 1: Alexander was still living at home, and she was pretty

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Speaker 1: set apart from the rest of her family at this point.

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Speaker 1: And it was a very public royal family. People, you know,

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Speaker 1: knew all of them. Her siblings were married to royalty

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Speaker 1: in many other houses. And the family was really hit

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Speaker 1: hard by this scandal and abdication. And Alexandra's health and

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Speaker 1: mental illness were already a little bit frail. She wasn't

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Speaker 1: really hardy and she was super preoccupied with cleanliness and

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Speaker 1: she would wear only white. So she already had some

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Speaker 1: behaviors that were a little bit obsessive and suggested that

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Speaker 1: she was not quite perfectly balanced. Right. So... Just because

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Speaker 1: one thing happened after another thing, it doesn't mean the

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Speaker 1: first thing caused the second thing. But this must have

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Speaker 1: been a really difficult time for somebody who was already

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Speaker 1: pretty isolated and not in good health. And within a

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Speaker 1: year of her father's abdication, when Alexandra was 23, her

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Speaker 1: parents saw her walking sideways, clearly struggling in the palace.

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Speaker 1: And when her parents asked her what was wrong, she

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Speaker 1: told them that when she was a child... She had

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Speaker 1: actually swallowed a grand piano made of glass. And she

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Speaker 1: was consequently frightened that if she bumped into anything, she

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Speaker 1: would shatter. That the piano that she believed she was

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Speaker 1: still carrying inside of her would break apart. Yes. So

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Speaker 1: there are two things that are particularly strange in this delusion.

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Speaker 1: And one is that she believed she had swallowed something

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Speaker 1: that was much, much bigger than she was. She believed

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Speaker 1: it to be an entire grand piano. And the other

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Speaker 1: is that she became to believe as an adult that

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Speaker 1: she had already done this when she was a child

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Speaker 1: and that the piano was still inside of her. It

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Speaker 1: caused her physical distress and it made her really, really

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Speaker 1: careful in how she moved around. And roughly a year

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Speaker 1: or so later in 1850, she was actually treated for

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Speaker 1: this delusion in a mental institution. It seems like she

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Speaker 1: made some recovery there. In 1852, she started to publish

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Speaker 1: books of stories, essays, poems, and other work, and she

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Speaker 1: also worked in children's theater. Eventually, she went to a

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Speaker 1: convent in Munich, and she spent much of her later

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Speaker 1: life there, and eventually even became an abbess. Which seems

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Speaker 1: like she must have been doing better at this point.

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Speaker 1: You wouldn't quite get into a position of authority if

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Speaker 1: you were having that sort of problem. Yeah. Yeah. She

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Speaker 1: died at the family's summer palace at the age of

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Speaker 1: 49 on September 21st, 1875. But she is not the

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Speaker 1: only person historically who has had the glass delusion. No,

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Speaker 1: that's an actual delusion that was cited pretty often between

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Speaker 1: the Middle Ages and all the way into the early

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Speaker 1: 19th century. It's maybe not something that was super common,

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Speaker 1: but it was prevalent enough that it appears in both

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Speaker 1: medical writing and in literature from the time. Basically, people

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Speaker 1: became convinced that they were either turning into glass or

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Speaker 1: that they were made out of glass or that they

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Speaker 1: had turned into a glass object, like a flask. This

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Speaker 1: is usually cited as a urinal, which was just the

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Speaker 1: word that was used for a little glass jar kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, or a lamp. They would be really careful

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Speaker 1: not to get bumped or jostled or come into contact

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Speaker 1: with anything hard because people who had this delusion were

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Speaker 1: afraid that they would shatter. And it often came, naturally,

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Speaker 1: with an extreme preoccupation with protecting themselves and avoiding contact

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Speaker 1: with others. Some people were even afraid that loud noises

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Speaker 1: would break them. So at that point, they would have

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Speaker 1: to be not touching anyone or in a quiet place. Right.

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Speaker 1: Kind of an isolation that probably would propagate the delusion

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Speaker 1: even further. Yeah. But a lot of times people were

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Speaker 1: afraid that their buttocks were glass and that they would

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Speaker 1: shatter if they sat down on anything hard. This whole

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Speaker 1: idea of being breakable and being afraid that you're going

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Speaker 1: to break was also not really new as a delusion.

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Speaker 1: But before the Middle Ages, people thought that they were

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Speaker 1: made of pottery. rather than glass. But the core idea

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Speaker 1: was still there of, if someone touches me too hard,

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Speaker 1: I will break. And at the time, this delusion was

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Speaker 1: tied to melancholia, and it was generally among people who

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Speaker 1: were very isolated and withdrawn from the company of other people.

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Speaker 1: And a lot of times, people who had this delusion

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Speaker 1: also had photophobia, and they wanted to stay out of

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Speaker 1: the sun. The first medical report of the condition may

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Speaker 1: have been around 1561, and it was in a treatise

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Speaker 1: by the Dutch physician Lemnius, who described a man who

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Speaker 1: would not sit down because he believed his buttocks were glass.

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Speaker 1: Charles VI of France also allegedly had this condition and

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Speaker 1: believed that his whole body was glass, so he wouldn't

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Speaker 1: let people touch him, and he had special clothing that

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Speaker 1: was reinforced with ribs made so that he could wear

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Speaker 1: that and then not break. And more than one physician

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Speaker 1: to royalty has described this condition. Alphonse Ponce de Santa Cruz,

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Speaker 1: who was the physician to Philip II of Spain, described

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Speaker 1: it around 1614. He described it as an unnamed person,

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Speaker 1: in this case, possibly a prince that thought he was

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Speaker 1: made of glass. And his physician told him to lie

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Speaker 1: in a straw bed so that he wouldn't break. And

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Speaker 1: then the bed was conveniently set ablaze, forcing the prince

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Speaker 1: to move quickly without consequently breaking, and that relieved him

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Speaker 1: of the delusion. Kind of reminds me of cartoons like

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Speaker 1: hitting the person on the head with amnesia again to

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Speaker 1: make their amnesia stop. Yes. André du Laurent, who was

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Speaker 1: the chief physician to Henry IV, also described that case

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Speaker 1: in his writings. Yes. Louis de Cazeneuve, who was the

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Speaker 1: royal physician in France, described a glassmaker who constantly wore

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Speaker 1: a cushion because he believed, again, his buttocks were made

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Speaker 1: of glass. And that doctor allegedly cured him by spanking him. So, again,

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Speaker 1: just proving that what the person believed was not the case. Right.

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Speaker 1: People also described that they had glass hearts or glass

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Speaker 1: heads or glass chests that had to be protected. And

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Speaker 1: there's one theory that most of the people... who described

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Speaker 1: being afraid that they were glass were educated people. And

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Speaker 1: they may have heard of this syndrome in medical writings,

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Speaker 1: and that may have contributed to eventually developing the delusion,

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Speaker 1: obviously based on other tendencies to be afraid and having

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Speaker 1: other mental things going on. Right. So it may have

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Speaker 1: just shaped kind of the way that their delusion developed

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Speaker 1: rather than being a spontaneous thought of their own. And

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Speaker 1: psychological writings at the time attributed many causes to this delusion,

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Speaker 1: including the preoccupation with chastity, purity, and fortune. And glass,

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Speaker 1: we should note, was tied to fortune in folklore and

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Speaker 1: literature because of its fragility. So fortune may turn on

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Speaker 1: you as easily as glass may break was kind of

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Speaker 1: the underlying theme there. There were also physiological explanations at

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Speaker 1: the time. including that the people's brains were too dry,

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Speaker 1: and that was tied to melancholia in general. And the

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Speaker 1: glass delusion, as you mentioned a little while ago, also

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Speaker 1: appears a lot in literature. In the 1607 allegorical play Lingua,

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Speaker 1: most likely by English playwright Thomas Tomkiss, there is a

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Speaker 1: character who believes he has become a glass urinal. There's

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Speaker 1: also the 1613 short story The Glass Graduate by Cervantes.

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Speaker 1: His main character, Thomas Rodaja, is obsessed with the idea

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Speaker 1: that he's made of glass. He wouldn't wear restrictive clothing.

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Speaker 1: He would drink water from his hands instead of a

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Speaker 1: cup and sleep in haylofts. And he would walk in

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Speaker 1: the middle of the road because he was scared that

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Speaker 1: if he walked by the side that he could be

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Speaker 1: shattered if roof tiles fell on him. In this story,

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Speaker 1: he winds up with this delusion because of an aphrodisiac

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Speaker 1: that has gone horribly wrong. In 1621, in The Anatomy

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Speaker 1: of Melancholy, Robert Burton writes about this delusion under Symptoms

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Speaker 1: or Signs in the Mind, and he ties it to

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Speaker 1: a fear of devil's death and danger. The 17th century

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Speaker 1: writer Paulo de Medina was a Spanish writer who had

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Speaker 1: a character who was a dandy and believed his bottom

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Speaker 1: was made of glass. And he had to commit himself

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Speaker 1: to an asylum after cracking it while answering the call

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Speaker 1: of nature. And this is sort of my personal note.

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Speaker 1: This series of stories about people who believe they are

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Speaker 1: glass and might break really reminds me of the possibly

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Speaker 1: apocryphal story about the person who does too much LSD

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Speaker 1: and then starts to think that he's a glass of

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Speaker 1: orange juice. If anybody touches him, he's going to spill.

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Speaker 1: Both of these have this same underlying sense of... Fear

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Speaker 1: and the Dangers of Taboo Behaviors. I had not heard

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Speaker 1: that one until it came up in this podcast research.

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Speaker 1: I heard it in high school. I never heard that one.

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Speaker 1: And it's on Snopes. I believe it. I just missed

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Speaker 1: that one. Other people than me have heard it. They

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Speaker 1: just have similarities. Yeah, there are commonalities for sure in

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Speaker 1: how they express a sense of this odd fear and,

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Speaker 1: as you said, like the... Taboo behaviors. The dangers of

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Speaker 1: not behaving properly. Right. And there is a lot of

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Speaker 1: modern research on these delusions as well. Well, there have

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Speaker 1: been modern writers who have kind of gone through and

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Speaker 1: documented all of the various citations of the glass delusion

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Speaker 1: in medical literature and in literature. There are other things

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Speaker 1: that have been documented that we didn't go over here

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Speaker 1: because then it would just be a list of names

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Speaker 1: and dates and that would be annoying. But the BBC

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Speaker 1: did an audio program called The Glass Piano in 2012.

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Speaker 1: And in it, an actor plays Princess Alexandra, and then

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Speaker 1: they interview modern scholars to offer some commentary about this

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Speaker 1: delusion that she experienced and sort of how she might

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Speaker 1: have come to this state. Psychoanalyst Susie Orbach says that

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Speaker 1: it was important that Alexandra's piano was specifically a piano

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Speaker 1: and not another glass thing. Piano, of course, means soft.

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Speaker 1: And what she thought she swallowed was huge and fragile.

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Speaker 1: But if she had been able to, she could have

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Speaker 1: used it to make music. Historian Erin Sullivan talks in

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Speaker 1: the program about doing work into the history of emotions.

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Speaker 1: And she specifically talks about the history of sadness. And...

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Speaker 1: Sullivan talks about the connection between melancholy and the glass delusion.

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Speaker 1: A lot of times the underlying fear was the fear

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Speaker 1: of being vulnerable. So men would be afraid that their

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Speaker 1: body was becoming glass and they would remove themselves from

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Speaker 1: society to protect themselves so that they wouldn't have to

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Speaker 1: have that vulnerability in front of other people. In Sullivan's opinion,

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Speaker 1: Alexandra's delusion may have been an expression of her underlying fragility.

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Speaker 1: And she does, in portraits, seem quite fragile. She casts a,

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Speaker 1: there is an air about her where she looks delicate.

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Speaker 1: It's very, she's very pensive. Her portrait was painted for

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Speaker 1: her father's gallery of beauties. And in it, she's really pale.

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Speaker 1: She's dressed all in white. As we said earlier, she

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Speaker 1: went through a period where she would only wear white.

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Speaker 1: And she just has a very fragile and pensive air

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Speaker 1: about her. So, You and I were talking earlier about

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Speaker 1: how it's not really a far walk to go from

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Speaker 1: being really uncomfortable around people and withdrawing from people and

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Speaker 1: feeling isolated and being afraid of being hurt to starting

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Speaker 1: to believe that you're made of something that will break

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Speaker 1: if you're hurt. Yeah. I mean, you can see how

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Speaker 1: someone who is isolated, there's nothing to stop that delusion

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Speaker 1: from developing. Right. Everything they're doing on their own is

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Speaker 1: sort of supporting it. Unlike the instances we cited where

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Speaker 1: physicians kind of did like an extreme immersive shock therapy

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Speaker 1: of like, no, you're not going to break. You're just fine.

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Speaker 1: You know, not everyone had that. And so the delusion

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Speaker 1: just kind of grows and takes on a life of

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Speaker 1: its own. Becomes very consuming. So that is the story

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Speaker 1: of the princess who swallowed the glass piano. I really

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Speaker 1: empathize with her. Yeah? Yeah. Do you think you swallowed something?

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Speaker 1: I do not think I've swallowed anything. I don't think

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Speaker 1: I've swallowed something glass, but I can, you know, I'm

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Speaker 1: kind of a neurotic, anxious person. I can sort of

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Speaker 1: see if I were living in a palace when my

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Speaker 1: brothers and sisters had all gotten married and gone off

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Speaker 1: to live their own lives in other palaces elsewhere. And

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Speaker 1: I didn't really have anybody to talk to. And I

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Speaker 1: was already kind of of a neurotic mindset. I can

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Speaker 1: sort of see. Yeah. Getting to that point. In the

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Speaker 1: isolated halls of the castle where my father had been

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Speaker 1: forced from the throne to be replaced by my brother. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is, as you said, a short walk. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's easy to see how that happens. Thanks so much

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Speaker 1: for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to

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Speaker 1: send us a note, our email address is historypodcast at iheartradio.com.

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Speaker 1: And you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.