The physiognomist thinks that from the color, habit, and proportion of the hair and members of the body, and from temperament and health, he can also know certain things about morals, talent, and the affections of the mind. He especially considers the forehead and face, because this is accustomed to be the mirror of intellectual virtues; then this is called metoposcopy. Juvenal mentions this when he writes of the forehead being offered by a woman to a seer. Aristotle and Polemon confuse it with chiromancy, which properly considers the lineaments of the hands as a kind of mirror of active virtues. But if it also considers the other members and the habit of the whole body, it is called physiognomy.
[margin: Juvenal, Satire 6, on metoposcopy; Aristotle and Polemon on physiognomy and chiromancy]
The ancient physicians Hippocrates and Galen diligently cultivated physiognomy, as did Aristotle in an entire book and Polemon the Athenian in the extant book On Natural Signs. Their writings are praised because they followed the tracks of nature. But the more recent writers Bartholomaeus Cocles, in Anastasis Physiognomica, Luca Gaurico, and others mix in many superstitious things, with the possible exception of Petrus Motus. Miguel de Medina praises his book On Multiple Temperament and on Knowing Men, because he first describes the mode of complexion, then by medical and philosophical reasoning the inclinations and talents of nations, provinces, and individual men. This method is true and correct, but I have not yet been able to obtain that author. Conrad Wimpina seems to me to have reduced almost all of Galen and Aristotle into a compendium not unhappily.
[margin: Physiognomy authorities: Hippocrates and Galen; Aristotle in an entire book; Polemon the Athenian, On Natural Signs; Bartholomaeus Cocles, Anastasis Physiognomica; Luca Gaurico and others; Petrus Motus, On Multiple Temperament and on Knowing Men, praised by Miguel de Medina, Christian Exhortation, book 2, chapter 2; Conrad Wimpina, On Signs, chapters 8-10, reducing Galen and Aristotle to a compendium]
The foundations of the art are various. The first is taken from a certain likeness with animals. For example, those who have small eyes are judged envious, because monkeys are such; those who have large eyes are judged stupid, like oxen and asses. The reason is that when God, the author of nature, knew with what character he had endowed each animal, he also added to each those instruments which were most fit for that character: to the fierce, such as lion, boar, and bull, claws, teeth, and horns; to the timid and fugitive, such as hare and deer, limbs necessary for swift flight; to strong beasts destined for plowing or bearing burdens, such as camel, ox, horse, and the other beasts of burden, sinews, hump, and strength of back and shoulders. Therefore from those bodily instruments with which they have been endowed by nature, as from a sign and a posteriori, physiognomists gather the character of animals.
The second foundation is taken from the morals of nations and provinces. Since they certainly have a bodily habit, for the most part they also differ in talents and morals. For instance, physiognomists define people who are very dark as stupid and stubborn, because the Ethiopians are of this kind.
The third is taken from sex. Because women for the most part have white and soft skin, and are timid and light, physiognomists judge those who are white and soft-skinned to be liable to the same morals. The reason for the second and third foundations is drawn from complexion. Since the same temperament is at once the cause of such skin and of such morals, they reason that wherever the skin is of this sort, the temperament is of the same sort. Therefore similar morals are to be expected from the same temperament by reason of the same temperament.
Fourth, they investigate the affections of the mind from the motions of the members and the affections of the body. Such is that saying of Hippocrates: “eyes that do not blink belong to the irascible,” because angry people look with fixed and unmoving eyes. Solomon reasoned in this way when he said: “The apostate man, the useless man, walks with a perverse mouth, winks with his eyes, scrapes with his foot, speaks with his finger, and with a wicked heart devises evil.” Isaiah too says, “The recognition of their face answered them,” that is, their outward face revealed the secrets of the heart. Martial, whom I do not know why old copies call Martial the Cook, argues in this way:
Red hair, black mouth, short foot, wounded eye: you present a great matter, Zoilus, if you are good.
We have learned that Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, a prince not undeserving of praise, was so devoted to divination that he usually undertook nothing without consulting astrologers, and that he applied himself so eagerly to this physiognomic divination that at first sight, from the lineaments of the face, he most skillfully judged the temperament and morals of men, so much that he gave his rivals the appearance of magic.
[margin: Outward signs of character: Hippocrates on fixed eyes; Proverbs 6:12-13 on the apostate man winking, scraping the foot, and speaking with the finger; Isaiah 3:9 on the face answering; Martial, Epigrams, book 12, number 54; Bonfini, Hungarian History, decade 4, book 8, and Joachim Cureus, Silesian Annals, on Matthias Corvinus]
The fifth foundation is taken from the comparison of signs with signs, and from some signs they gather others; for example, envy from anger joined with sadness and depravity of mind.
Let this be the conclusion: physiognomy, when it remains within the limits of natural philosophy, is lawful and has some probability.
It is proved first because some of the foundations set down are probable, some less and some more. Second, it is proved from Sacred Scripture, in which the faces of strong men are said to be like the faces of lions; likewise that wisdom shines in the face of the prudent, while the eyes of fools are at the ends of the earth; again, “the wisdom of a man shines in his face,” and “the heart of a man changes his face,” as already cited. Third, it is proved from legal interpreters, whose more common calculation accepts that when several have been accused and arrested for some crime, the one whose face is more deformed should first be subjected to questioning, because he is to be believed also more depraved in soul. Fourth, it is proved by the opinion of philosophers. Pythagoras admitted or rejected disciples by the rules of this discipline; by this indication Socrates recognized what sort of man Plato would become, as he was later praised. Plato, Aristotle, and Sextus the Philosopher made much of this: the first uses it in his dialogues, the second treated it carefully, and the third for this reason called the body the image of the soul. Cicero, from this point, wonderfully attacked his opponent with skillful javelins. Velleius Paterculus testifies that the ancients made much use of it.
[margin: Scriptural, legal, and philosophical proofs for physiognomy: 1 Chronicles 12:8 on faces like lions; Proverbs 17:24; Ecclesiastes 8:1 and 13:31 on wisdom and the face; Proverbs 6:12 and Isaiah 3:9 as already cited; Baldus and other legal interpreters on questioning the more deformed accused first; Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Sextus the Philosopher, Cicero, For Roscius the Comedian, and Velleius Paterculus, History, book 2]
I said that it has probability, not certainty, because bodily dispositions usually go before the affections of the mind, as Galen demonstrated in a whole little book; but they go before, not by dragging or compelling, but by gently and steadily inclining, so that by good habit and the bridle of reason that inclination is overcome without great difficulty. Socrates was not ashamed to testify this about himself, when the physiognomist Zopyrus judged from the lineaments of his body that he was dull, stupid, and given to women. Cassius the physician must be understood in this way, when he was asked why men of monstrous form are often also disturbed in mind and answered: “because the soul agrees with the body, as the body with the soul.”
[margin: Galen on bodily disposition and affections of the soul; Cicero, On Fate, and Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Fate, book 4, problem 5, on Zopyrus judging Socrates; Cassius the physician on body and soul agreeing]
From this follows, first, that a far more certain judgment is made of brute animals than of men, because brutes are drawn by inclination alone, while a human being, having freedom of will, moderates inclination. Second, it follows that a physiognomist is not allowed to judge of fact, or of a man’s actual life, as though this man is such and such, but only of proneness and inclination. Proclus judged this very well: for example, that such a man tends and inclines toward greed, women, wine, and the like. Third, it follows that this faculty cannot judge divine and gratuitous gifts, because God distributes these to each as he wills; nor can it judge things wholly extrinsic to a man, such as violent death, wealth, honors, and the other good or bad things of fortune; nor marriages, state of life, and other affairs whose choice is purely voluntary. The book of Melampus on moles is full of such trifles. The reason is that none of these things depends on the habit or constitution of the body.
[margin: Proclus on Alcibiades; Melampus on moles]
God indeed permits certain divinations of these matters to be confirmed by the event; but at the same time he lets them be deceived in those matters that are more necessary to them. In his Elogia, Paul Jovius writes of Antonio Tiberto of Cesena, who was regarded as an excellent physiognomist in his time, that he predicted to Guido Balneo that he would be killed by an intimate friend, and to Pandolfo Malatesta, tyrant of Rimini, that he would be expelled from his country and die in exile in extreme poverty. Shortly afterward Pandolfo, because of Guido’s observed virtue and suspected virtue alike, slew him, committed Antiochus to the custody of a guard, and waited for the outcome of the forecast. Antiochus bent the daughter of the keeper of the fortress to his will so that, having obtained a rope from her, he was lowered into the ditch; but betrayed by the sound of his shackles, he was dragged back from flight and struck down with the girl. Pandolfo finally died in exile and poverty, abandoned by everyone, an old man in a hospice. Thus, while Antiochus took precautions for others, he took none for himself. These things could also have been conjectured by human prudence. What is unexpected or marvelous if a tyrant kills a strong man close to him, out of suspicion? What is more plausible than that a hated tyrant, if bold, is killed, or if timid, is compelled into flight, and once driven out, is reduced to poverty?
[margin: Paul Jovius, Elogia, on Antonio Tiberto of Cesena, Guido Balneo, Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, and Antiochus of Cesena, with Del Rio’s caution about Jovius’s reliability and Augustine’s answer to such examples]