Chiromancy is divided into physical and astrological.
The first conclusion is this: physical chiromancy is lawful and is a part of physiognomy; therefore the same judgment applies to it as to physiognomy.
The reason is that by the lines and parts of the hand it considers the very temperament of the body, and from the temperament of the body it probably investigates the inclinations of the soul. Aristotle approves this art, and Conrad Wimpina treats it at length. Pierre de La Primaudaye is incautious when, because he does not distinguish these two species, he seems to condemn all chiromancy.
[margin: Physical chiromancy: Aristotle, History of Animals, book 1, chapter 5, and Problems, section 10; Conrad Wimpina, On Signs, chapters 10-12; Pierre de La Primaudaye, French Academy, part 2, day 1, chapter 4, criticized for not distinguishing physical from astrological chiromancy]
The second conclusion is this: astrological chiromancy is utterly vain and unlawful, and does not deserve the name of science. Antonius Verderius tries to prove that it is a science. It is plain that he speaks also of this kind, not only of physical chiromancy, both because he joins it with astrology and contends that both are sciences, and because in the response to the penultimate objection he says that the signification of these lines of the hand is infallibly directed by the stars. This certainly deserves ecclesiastical censure, because Pope Sixtus V, by his bull issued against astrologers and chiromancers, defined that neither is a science and, condemning both alike, subjected them to grave penalties. The judgment of this most learned and greatest Pontiff outweighs all rashness of those who think the contrary. Moreover, because in the Roman catalogue of books whose reading is forbidden all who teach chiromancy are openly numbered, it is therefore prohibited.
[margin: Antonius Verderius, Various Readings, book 7, chapter 9, attempts to prove chiromancy a science; Pope Sixtus V’s bull against astrologers and chiromancers and the Roman Index deny that status and forbid such books]
Francisco Valles, a most learned physician, teaches very well that it is vain, and most deservedly detests it. First, its practitioners labor under the madness of mathematici concerning the influences of the stars, which we disproved above in Question I. They add from themselves, what is even more foolish, that this little field belongs to Jupiter, that one to Mercury, a third to Venus, and so on. Third, they add that such fields and lines foretell this thing, others that; none of this they confirm by reason or authority, but they demand that we give our hands to their bare delirium and alleged experience. Yet, though the principles of this art are so empty, there have always been people who cherish this little lie.
[margin: Francisco Valles, Sacred Philosophy, chapter 32, against astrological chiromancy and the supposed planetary fields and lines of the hand]
In ancient times Helenus of Syracuse handed down chiromancy in prose in a book he called a chiroscopic augury, an “omen of hand-inspection”; a certain Eumolpus put it into verse. Pollux and Suidas mention both. More recent writers include Johannes de Indagine, a Lutheran distinct from the Carthusian of the same name, Johannes Taisnerus of Athens, Antonius Cermisonus, Bartholomaeus Cocles, Michael Savonarola, Petrus de Arca, Marcellus Saya, Andreas Tricassus, Michael Scotus, Johannes Teukesberg, and others, whose books swarm with superstitions. This art first divides the palm of the hand into certain little hills, fields, and lines; it assigns individual planets to the fields and certain stars to the lines; finally it ascribes to these fields and lines of the hand the effects commonly believed to belong to those stars and planets. Wimpina briefly sets this out, adding that he is merely a narrator of these things, not an approver, and that in his judgment all are trifles. John of Salisbury, an ancient writer, detests and attacks these things more vehemently.
[margin: Chiromancy authorities and critics: Helenus of Syracuse, in a prose book called a chiroscopic augury, and Eumolpus in verse, both mentioned by Pollux and Suidas; recent writers Johannes de Indagine, Johannes Taisnerus of Athens, Antonius Cermisonus, Bartholomaeus Cocles, Michael Savonarola, Petrus de Arca, Marcellus Saya, Andreas Tricassus, Michael Scotus, Johannes Teukesberg, and others; Conrad Wimpina, who says he narrates rather than approves the art; John of Salisbury, Policraticus, book 2, chapter 27, attacking it]
Against these stands that well-balanced line of Juvenal:
She will offer both forehead and hand to a seer asking for repeated kisses.
Britannicus rightly observed that the first belongs to the metoposcopist, the second to the chiromancer. Wives, if they are wives, from that scum which wanders through all Europe are accustomed to profess this vanity. Common people call them Zingari or Egyptians. Crespitus gathered many things about them. But these people are better known to German writers than to French or Italian writers; therefore let us hear them. Sebastian Munster, not contemptible outside matters of faith, carefully investigated their condition and origin:
[margin: Juvenal, Satire 6, on forehead and hand offered to a seer, with Britannicus’s distinction of metoposcopy and chiromancy; Crespitus, On the Hatred of Satan, book 1, discourse 12, folio 176 and following, on Zingari or Egyptians; Sebastian Munster, Cosmography, book 3, folio 267, on their origin and practices]
In the year after Christ’s birth 1417, there first began to appear throughout Germany men deformed by blackness, baked by the sun, filthy in dress and in the use of all things, intent especially on theft, above all the women of that people; for the men live from the theft of the women. The common people call them Tartars or Gentiles; in Italy they call them Cianos. They honor among themselves a leader, counts, and soldiers, distinguished by clothing; they keep hunting dogs in the manner of nobility, but unless it is by theft they have nowhere to hunt. They often change horses, yet the greater part goes on foot. The women are carried with baggage and little children on a beast of burden. They carry letters of King Sigismund and of some princes, that harmless passage through cities and provinces may be permitted to them. They report that, by penance imposed on them, they wander through the world, and that they first emigrated from Lesser Egypt. But these are fables. It is a race of men, as has been learned by experience in their wandering, born for idleness, recognizing no homeland, and roaming through provinces in such a way that, living from the theft of the women, they pass their lives like dogs, with no care for religion, although they see to it that their little children are baptized among Christians. They live from day to day, migrating from province to province; at intervals of several years they return, but they split into many parts so that the same people do not easily return to the same place except after long intervals. Everywhere in all provinces they receive men and women willing to join them, who mix themselves with their company. A marvelous scum of people, skilled in all languages, weighing heavily upon the rustic common people. Where that woman is laboring outdoors in the fields, there they are watching for plunder in the cottages. Their old women give themselves to chiromancy and divination, and meanwhile give responses to those who ask how many children, husbands, or wives they will have, and with astonishing cunning and nimbleness they search out and empty the purses of those who ask.
These things are very true concerning their morals. Hence wonder often enters the mind: by what right, or rather by what wrong, is this kind of crime tolerated by princes in certain provinces, with very great scandal and harm to rustics? For whoever permits impunity for crimes tolerates criminals. If these thieves may be tolerated, certainly others may also be tolerated. If their chiromancy and other malefices are tolerated, is this not to strive against the authority of divine law and ecclesiastical canons? The notorious crimes which Munster records are also recorded in the same words by Albert Krantz, so that either one received them from the other or both from a third.
[margin: Sebastian Munster, Cosmography, book 3, folio 267, and Albert Krantz on the Zingari: their first appearance in Germany in 1417, Italian name Cianos, letters of King Sigismund, claimed Lesser Egyptian origin and penance, wandering life, thefts, reception of outsiders, languages, old women’s chiromancy and divination, and harm to rural people]
As for malefice, experience teaches it. If anyone gives them a single coin from a bag or chest, all the coins which were in the same chest or bag are often discovered to have moved to the place where that one coin is; this is an open malefice. As for those divinations, they cannot be excused from superstition, or heresy if they think in that way, or scandalous imposture. The commonwealths ought by no means to allow that they receive others everywhere from the nations through which they pass; rather, those who attach themselves to them, and the receivers themselves, should be restrained by fitting penalties. For it is contrary to the welfare of the commonwealth to foster idle and wandering people, which is plainly either foolish or wicked. The Egyptian and Attic laws against the idle are known. It is known today that where justice flourishes, magistrates are accustomed to inquire into such people, from what they live, for no one is presumed to live on wind. The law of the Corinthians, which Athenaeus reported from a comedy of Diphilus, has therefore always been deservedly commended:
This is most excellently established among the Corinthians: if we see someone always buying splendid fare, we ask this man from where he lives and what work he does. If he has means, so that his revenues can bear such expenses, we allow him to enjoy his goods. But if his expenses exceed what he possesses, we forbid him to do this afterward. If he does not obey, he is punished with a heavy fine. If one who has nothing lives lavishly, they hand him over to the torturers. By Hercules, it is not lawful to live such a life without crime: know this, that he must either steal prey by night, dig through the walls of houses, play the sycophant in the forum, or offer himself as a perjured witness. We cast this kind of mortals out of the city as sweepings.
I believe they would have tolerated the Zingari, whom not presumption but fact teaches to live by stealing, plundering, tricks, and malefices.
[margin: Athenaeus and Diphilus on Corinthian laws against idle luxury; Albert Krantz and Munster on tolerated Zingari crimes]
Their patrons, however, excuse them: they are a wretched race of men, worthy of pity. Why? Originating from Egypt, they are paying the penalty for their ancestors’ apostasy from the Christian faith, and they perform a penance of wandering for seven years in uncertain places. This is the sum of their defense. Others refute it, including the Sebastian I mentioned. “It is more or less twenty-six years from this time when I, Munster, write these things,” he says, “since, while living at Heidelberg, joining myself to the leaders of that people, I barely wrung out certain letters which they boasted that they had from emperors. That writing was shown to me. We saw one which they say had been obtained at Lindau from Emperor Sigismund, in which mention was made of how their ancestors in Lesser Egypt, for some years, having abandoned Christianity, had fallen back into the error of Gentility, and when they came to their senses a penance was imposed on them: that for so many years some from each of their families should wander through the world and wash away in exile the crime of their treachery. But the time of this wandering has long since vanished, and yet that scum does not cease wandering about, stealing, lying, auguring, and divining.”
[margin: Sebastian Munster, Cosmography, book 3, on the alleged Lesser Egyptian origin, imperial letters from Sigismund at Lindau, apostasy from Christianity, seven-year wandering penance, and Munster’s objection that the term of penance had long expired while theft, lying, augury, and divination continued]
Why, if the term of penance has expired, do they still pretend penance? But the thing they boast about Egypt is also false. When questioned, they do not even know what Egypt is, or where Lesser or Greater Egypt are. From where, then, have they come forth? There is a marvelous variety of opinions. Some think they are called Cincali, as though houseless people and beggars. Certainly gamma and kappa are easily exchanged, and Menander in the Thais calls someone “more beggarly than a leberis and a cingale.” Leberis means the cast-off skin of a serpent; cinclus is a bird also called the wag-tail, which, if you remove the ornament of the tail, is very bare-feathered. From this country people call poor wanderers cincli, as the collector of adages teaches from Aelian and Suidas. This opinion pleased Pierius Valerianus, but it does not touch the matter.
[margin: Etymologies for Cincali/cincli: Menander, Thais, on someone poorer than a leberis and a cingale; Aelian and Suidas as reported by the collector of adages, chiliad 2, century 2; Pierius Valerianus, Hieroglyphics, book 25]
Polydore thinks they are Assyrians and Cilicians; Volaterranus thinks they are Uxians from Persia, that is, he is guessing. The name points elsewhere. The Belgians call them Egipteners, the French Egiptiens, the Spaniards Gitanos, the Italians Cingaros or Cianos, the Upper Germans Zigenners, all words drawn from Egypt; and this last perhaps as Chuseners, from Chus, son of Ham, father of the Egyptians and Ethiopians. Since they see that the fixed time of penance has expired, they now invent two things. One is that they cannot return to their homeland because the roads have been blocked. Then let them be forced to divide up, be assigned to a fixed dwelling, and live there under the laws received there, or else be expelled. The other is that even after that seven-year period, a necessary migration from their native seats is still required of them; if they do otherwise, and do not every year send out their bands or hordes, that is, multitudes of both sexes, into exile, calamity and sterility are certainly at hand for all. This is a worthy cause, I say, to be diligently investigated; if that is done, the imposture will at once appear. What or where is this nation which multiplies so greatly every year? Indeed in its wandering it would quickly perish, unless it collected adults from everywhere.
[margin: Polydore Vergil thinks the people Assyrians and Cilicians; Volaterranus thinks them Persian Uxians; European names include Belgian Egipteners, French Egiptiens, Spanish Gitanos, Italian Cingaros or Cianos, and Upper German Zigenners, all connected by Del Rio with Egypt or Chus]
Moreover, they themselves show sufficiently that the first story of the imposed penance was false. What I have discovered as more likely concerning the source of these people is what Aventinus wrote in the Annals of the Bavarians: “At the same time that most thieving race of men, a scum and sink of various nations, whom we call Zigeni, dwelling on the border of the empire of the Turks and Hungary, under King Zinkel, began to wander through our regions, seeking life by theft, rapine, and divinations with complete impunity. They falsely claim that they are from Egypt and most shamelessly invent that they are driven from home by the gods as exiles to expiate by seven years of exile the crimes of their ancestors, who refused to receive the Virgin Mother of God with the boy Jesus as guests. I have learned by experiments that they use the Wendish language and that they are traitors and spies. Maximilian, Emperor Caesar Augustus, and Albert, parent of our princes, among others, testify this in public edicts. Yet vain superstition has so invaded men’s minds, like lethargy, that they think it sacrilege to violate them, and they allow them to attack, steal, and deceive everywhere with impunity.”
[margin: Aventinus, Bavarian Annals, book 7, folio 826, on the Zigeni under King Zinkel as a thieving mixed race near the Turkish-Hungarian border, falsely claiming Egyptian exile, using the Wendish language, and acting as spies and traitors; public edicts of Maximilian Caesar Augustus and Albert, parent of the princes, testify the same]
Gather three things from this. First, by origin they are Slavs from the region of the Wends; Aventinus indicates this by saying that their native language inclines toward Slavic. I know that they also have, besides this, a made-up language known only to themselves, which the Spaniards call Ziriguenca and the Germans, according to Munster, Rotwelsch, that is, Red Barbarism. Meanwhile they know almost all the languages of Europe; among Germans they speak German, among Frenchmen French, among Italians Italian, and so on, which is necessary for the purpose of spying. Second, you see that they now extend that seven-year penance of their ancestors to individual descendants, so that it may be a pretext for wandering. Third, though found out by most prudent princes for treason and deservedly condemned, they are fostered by a certain superstition of the imprudent.
[margin: Aventinus and Munster on Slavic origin, Ziriguenca, Rotwelsch, languages, spying, and extended penance]
I shall say a thing that strongly confirms the matter. When I was in Spain in 1584 at Leon, a great multitude of those people had flooded the surrounding villages. The feast of Corpus Christi was being celebrated. They sought entry into the city so that, as a matter of honor, they might dance before the procession, as was customary there. They did so, but after midday, because a riot had arisen from the thefts of the women, they fled into the suburbs and gathered at St. Mark’s, the magnificent residence and hospital of the knights of St. James, and drove back the ministers of justice by military force. Soon afterward, I do not know by what means, everything was covered over. This horde had a count, as they call him. Many Spaniards had been received into the group, even from Grajal, Villabraxima, and some villages of Castile. The count spoke the Castilian language as perfectly as if he had been born in Toledo. He knew all the land approaches into Spain, which they call puertos, all the bends and difficulties of the regions, what strength each city had, who were the leading men in each, and what resources each possessed. Almost nothing pertaining to the commonwealth was so secret that he did not know it, and he did not conceal this but boasted of it. For what or for whose business was this curious exploration? Should not this curiosity of wanderers be restrained, even if they were only foreigners and of blameless life? May good be with you, greatest Charles: in the constitutions of the Diet held at Augsburg in 1549, chapter 26, you decreed that this dregs of mortals, these most dangerous wanderers, Zingari or tricksters, should leave German soil as spies and traitors of the Christian Church sent by the Turks. Peter Gregory records this constitution; Crespitus inveighs against them, as does Philip Camerarius, whose better religion I could wish.
[margin: Del Rio’s 1584 Leon account; Charles V’s Augsburg constitution of 1549; Peter Gregory, Crespitus, and Philip Camerarius]
Two things are objected against us: one, the authority of Sacred Scripture; the other, certain examples of this divination. The authorities are two. The first is Exodus: “And it shall be as a sign in your hand.” I answer that this is explained by the words following: “and as a memorial before your eyes.” For it speaks of the solemnity of unleavened bread, whose celebration God wishes to be for the Hebrews a memorial sign of liberation from Egypt. He takes the metaphor from the custom of men who, when they wish to remember some matter, put a ring on a finger or tie a thread, because since we often lift the hand before the eyes, we are made to remember what we feared forgetting.
[margin: Exodus 13 on a sign in the hand and memorial before the eyes]
The second is Job: “He signs in the hand of every man, so that all may know his works.” Therefore, they say, God has painted in the hand of each person the marks by which they can know in advance what they will say, do, or suffer. I answer with Olympiodorus and Philip the presbyter that these words signify that the change of weather of which Job speaks, with fair weather and storms of snow and rain, is moderated by God so that God’s strength may be made manifest, and so that man, seeing himself hindered so easily by God from his purpose in any weather, and his hand bound as if by certain chains and barred from work, may recognize that he can do nothing without God’s help and confess his own weakness. The version of the Septuagint favors this exposition, since it has, “so that every man may know his own weakness,” as does the Hebrew text, which literally reads: “in the hand,” or “in vehemence,” “he will seal all, so that all men may know his work.” There, according to Hebrew usage, our translator renders veiad as “in the hand,” for a vehement and admirable sign, just as Isaiah and Ezekiel used “the hand” for a prophetic vision that was not common, and as Moses used “the hand of God” for the power and greatness of God. Read another explanation of the passage in Job in Francisco Valles. Although it is ingenious, it does not cohere with the preceding words.
[margin: Job 37; Olympiodorus, Philip the presbyter, the Septuagint, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Moses, and Francisco Valles on “hand” and divine power]
Third, they contend from examples of predictions which the event confirmed. Bartholomaeus Cocles, who published so many books of chiromancy and was a disciple of Antiochus of Cesena, about whom I wrote in the preceding question, advised Luca Gaurico the astrologer to flee, so that he might escape the violent torture threatening him. Gaurico despised the warnings because he had predicted in his ephemerides that Giovanni Bentivoglio would be cast down from his tyranny at Bologna. By order of the violent prince, suspended on a rope from a raised pulley, he was shaken five times and paid the penalty for his boasted astrology and despised chiromancer. A certain Greek predicted death to Alessandro de’ Medici from inspection of his hand and gave the signs of the killer: that he would be one of his intimates, slender in habit, with a box-colored little face, suspended in taciturnity, and unsociable with the rest. All these things converged in Lorenzino, who was also the killer. But that same Cocles had predicted to a certain Copono that he would shortly stain his hands with wicked homicide, and to Hermes, son of the tyrant, that he would be killed in exile in battle. Therefore Hermes, struck with fatal fear, secretly ordered Copono to kill Coelites, this new Calchas for his Agamemnon. Cocles was not unaware of the danger. Therefore he secretly fortified his head with a helmet and, always armed with a huge sword which he handled most skillfully with both hands, was on his guard. But Copono, disguised as a porter, when Cocles inserted a key at the threshold of a door that had been blocked by a small stone, killed him with an axe driven into the back of his head. Copono gave no other reason for committing the deed than that Cocles himself had asserted that he would shortly be a murderer. Jovius alone narrates all these things, and he is not in every respect a historian of undoubted faith, nor sufficiently free from superstitious and pagan opinions, or at least from pagan expressions. Even if we grant that these things happened, the same answer must be given, with St. Augustine, that was given above to those who boast such things for astrologers.
[margin: Paul Jovius, Elogia, on Bartholomaeus Cocles, Luca Gaurico, Giovanni Bentivoglio, Alessandro de’ Medici, Lorenzino, Copono, and Hermes; Del Rio applies Augustine’s answer from the earlier astrology question to such fulfilled predictions]