 Within its own historical context, physiognomonics was viewed as a scientia universalis, rational science as good as, or perhaps even better than, the new anatomy, since it could be used for universal description and as a means to identify character traits (Paolella 2015). In his circular reasoning, Porta’s cosmos becomes more and more anthropomorphic, as universal signatures are imprinted not only into human beings, but also share these physical traits with the stars, animals, herbs and even stones (as explained in Porta’s Phytognomonica) (Kahn &amp; Perifano 2018).