 On another front Porta’s physiognomics found an echo in Harsdörfer’s universal linguistics. In his Frauenzimmer Gesprächspiele (1641–49). Physiognomics figures as one among countless linguistic systems, as part of a characteristically baroque science of signs and symbols. Harsdörfer aligned Porta’s physiognomics with the influental Italian tradition of theorists of art such as Cesare Ripa Guazzo, Capaccio, Ferrante Pallavicion or the Bargalli Brothers. The influential poet, cabbalist and theosophist Knorr von Rosenroth (1636–89) produced a careful and nuanced translation of Porta’s Magia naturalis into German (1680). (Battafarano 1990, Balbiani 2008 ). In France too both editions of the Magia remained very popular throughout the sixteenth century: in the learned world, Mersenne commented on Porta’s optics. (Beaulieu 1990).