Earliest use The earliest known possible visual depiction of a heart symbol, as a lover hands his heart to the beloved lady, in a manuscript of the , mid-13th century. The combination of the heart shape and its use within the heart metaphor was developed in the end of the Middle Ages, although the shape has been used in many ancient epigraphy monuments and texts. With possible early examples or direct predecessors in the 13th to 14th century, the familiar symbol of the heart representing love developed in the 15th century, and became popular in Europe during the 16th.Kemp (2011), 96–99. Giotto in his 1305 painting in the Scrovegni Chapel (Padua) shows an allegory of charity (caritas) handing her heart to Jesus Christ. This heart is also depicted in the pine cone shape based on anatomical descriptions of the day (still held "upside down"). Giotto's painting exerted considerable influence on later painters, and the motive of Caritas offering a heart is shown by Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Croce, by Andrea Pisano on the bronze door of the south porch of the Baptisterium in Florence (), by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Palazzo Publico in Siena () and by Andrea da Firenze in Santa Maria Novella in Florence (). The convention of showing the heart point upward switches in the late 14th century and becomes rare in the first half of the 15th century.
Earliest use The combination of the heart shape and its use within the heart metaphor was developed in the end of the Middle Ages, although the shape has been used in many ancient epigraphy monuments and texts. With possible early examples or direct predecessors in the 13th to 14th century, the familiar symbol of the heart representing love developed in the 15th century, and became popular in Europe during the 16th.Kemp (2011), 96–99. Giotto in his 1305 painting in the Scrovegni Chapel (Padua) shows an allegory of charity (caritas) handing her heart to Jesus Christ. This heart is also depicted in the pine cone shape based on anatomical descriptions of the day (still held "upside down"). Giotto's painting exerted considerable influence on later painters, and the motive of Caritas offering a heart is shown by Taddeo Gaddi in Santa Croce, by Andrea Pisano on the bronze door of the south porch of the Florence Baptistery (), by Ambrogio Lorenzetti in the Palazzo Publico in Siena () and by Andrea da Firenze in Santa Maria Novella in Florence (). The convention of showing the heart point upward switches in the late 14th century and becomes rare in the first half of the 15th century.
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earliest known possible visual depiction of a heart symbol, as a lover hands his heart to the beloved lady, in a manuscript of the , mid-13th century. The
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Baptisterium in Florence
Florence Baptistery