Chyromantie ac Physionomie Anastasis (Cocles, 1504)

Bartolomeo della Rocca, known as Cocles, was a Bolognese barber-surgeon, palmist and physiognomist whose Chyromantie ac physionomie anastasis was printed in Bologna in 1504, the year of his death. The title, roughly 'the resurrection of chiromancy and physiognomy', claims to restore these arts of reading character and destiny from the hand and the face to their ancient dignity, and the book carries a preface by the humanist Alessandro Achillini, which helped give it scholarly respectability. Cocles discusses the lines and mounts of the palm and their correspondence with the planets, and the features of the face and body as signs of temperament, health and fortune, within the framework of Galenic and astrological medicine. The book became one of the most influential Renaissance manuals of its kind, was reprinted and abridged many times, and was translated into French, German and English, so that later palmistry handbooks owe much to it. Cocles was also notorious for his predictions; tradition holds that he foresaw his own violent death, and he was in fact murdered in 1504 in a political feud in Bologna. The online edition presents images from the 1504 edition: the title page, diagrams of the left and right hands, and the planetary signs (signa) of Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon used to interpret markings of the palm.

What it contains

• Title page of the 1504 Bologna edition
• Diagrams of the left and right hands
• Planetary signs for reading the palm
• Chiromantic correspondences of lines and mounts
• Physiognomic signs of temperament and fortune