 A truly universal science, physiognomonics provides its master not only with a key for decoding the ciphers written into human faces (by relating them to the shapes of animals) or a manual for reading the lines engraved into the palms of our hands, but also (as Porta suggests) with diagnostic methods for understanding all of creation, from plants to stars. As is amply advertised already in the prefaces to all of his texts on physiognomonics, the art establishes a metonymic relationship between inorganic bodies and psychological qualities (Caputo 1990, Paolella 2004, Muratori 2017).