List of Illustrations; List of Figures; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. A Persistent Fisnomical Consciousness c.400 BCE-c.1470 CE; 2. The Bookish Face of Physiognomy in Early Modern Europe; 3. The Troubling Emergence of the 'Egyptian' in Early Modern Europe; 4. The Physiognomy Captured and Lost in a Book; 5. Physiognomating by the Book; 6. Living Graffiti; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index
Summary
In early modern Europe there was a small group of books on the art of physiognomy which claimed to provide self-knowledge through an interpretation of external features. The authors of these books explained how the eyes, the face, and all of nature's natural bodies became windows of the soul. Dr Porter uses remnants of the highly illustrated and graffitied texts on physiognomy to interpret the way that these books were read and viewed, and trace the changes that took place between. the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of Romanticism. - ;In late fifteenth century Florence, Renaissance h
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 326-345) and index
