The Princess Who Thought She Swallowed a Glass Piano

A look into one of the most intriguing conditions in the history of psychiatry that plagued Europeans for centuries.

It is said that Princess Alexandra of Bavaria spent her days carefully meandering through palace corridors, turning sideways to get through doors, convinced that a mere bump would shatter her body to pieces. Is this recount of history a creative metaphor? A piece of poetic symbolism? Threaded throughout the tapestry of royal history lies a common strand not made of silk or gold but of the most delicate material of all: glass. 

Born 26 August 1826 in Schloss Johannisburg in Aschaffenbury, Alexandra was the eighth child and fifth daughter of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. A successful writer and essayist, Alexandra devoted her life to literature. However, she suffered throughout her life from several psychological conditions, including a fixation with cleanliness and, most notably, a belief that she had swallowed a whole grand piano made of glass. This "glass delusion" haunted her until her death in 1875, and however much physicians tried to persuade her otherwise, she was convinced that the glass piano remained inside her and that it could shatter at any moment.  

Remarkably, this curious phenomenon was not a one-off. Alexandra followed in a long line of royals and nobles who believed that parts of their bodies were made of glass.

King Charles ‘The Mad’

One of the first recorded, and perhaps one of the most famous, cases of the glass delusion was King Charles VI of France. King Charles ascended the throne in 1380 at the age of 11. His reign began well— he cared for France's commoners, allowed non-aristocrats among his counsellors and was admired by his subjects. As a result, he became known as Charles' Well-Beloved'. Sadly, his story took a dark turn when he experienced a psychotic break in 1392. This event marked the beginning of his struggle with what historians now believe to be schizophrenia, leading to sporadic violent outbursts. Now nicknamed by his subjects as Charles "The Mad", Charles felt his body was made entirely of glass, fearing that any movement could cause him to smash into pieces. He would remain still for hours, wrapped in layers of cloth to protect himself. When he did have to move, he wore a coat with iron "ribs" to safeguard his fragile glass organs.

Selected Cases

The delusion continued to afflict many nobles for hundreds of years after. In The Optick Glasse of Humors, 1607, Thomas Walkington talks of a Venitian man who believed his posterior to be made of glass, leaving him afraid of sitting down. This ‘fool’, as Walkington calls him, never left his house lest a glazier make him into a window. 

Meanwhile, in 17th century Paris, a physician recorded a remarkable case of a cure. Confronted with a patient similarly afflicted with the belief that his backside was made of glass, the doctor resorted to an unconventional treatment. He administered a severe beating to the patient, who soon realised that his buttocks, far from being brittle panes, were indeed composed of tender, mortal flesh.  

What Caused the Glass Delusion? 

In 1612, English scholar Robert Burton linked the glass delusion to melancholy in his work The Anatomy of Melancholy, the world’s first psychiatric encyclopaedia. Melancholy, Burton believed, was a type of “dotage” or mental instability typically accompanied by sorrow and fear. He suggested that the glass delusion was just one of many strange afflictions that manifested as a result of melancholy. 

Fear of devils, death, that they shall be so sick, of some such or such disease, ready to tremble at every object, they shall die themselves forthwith… that they are all glass, and therefore will suffer no man to come near them: that they are all cork, as light as feathers; others as heavy as lead; some are afraid their heads will fall off their shoulders, that they have frogs in their bellies

The Earthenware Men

The glass delusion was prevalent from the 15th to the 19th centuries before mysteriously fading away in the 20th century. While the reason for this decline in cases is still uncertain, it has been suggested that the introduction of new substances has influenced materials-based delusions throughout history. In early medieval texts, there are records of people who believed themselves to be made of pottery, and in the second century AD, there was a case of a man who thought himself to be a large piece of earthenware. 

Today, such delusions are approached through the lens of mental health. Reframed through modern medical discourse, the glass delusion emerges as a potential symptom of profound distress and anxiety. However, these historical cases offer invaluable insight into the ways in which communities grappled with the intricacies of human frailty within the social landscapes of their era.