Chiromantic Revivals and the Development of Chirognomy
The eighteenth century saw very few new books on chiromancy throughout
the whole of Europe. In England, France and Italy, the study of the hand almost completely
disappears and even in Germany where there were some new writers on the art, very little
of substantial value is added to the body of chiromantical knowledge by any of these
authors. Most of these texts were either anonymous works or were merely reprints or
reworkings of the texts of earlier authorities. The eighteenth century is quite remarkable
in the history of European chirology quite simply because it is entirely without any
central figure whatsoever!
This is not to say that the practice of handreading had died out
altogether, for no doubt it continued to be practiced in its more debased and
superstitious form by itinerant chiromancers and gipsies. But there was no serious and
concerted study of the hand as there had been in the previous five centuries. The
only eighteenth century palmist of any note was Marie-Anne Le Normand (1768-1842), and
this is only eally due to her famous associations. As a result of being acquainted with
one Josephine de Beauharnais, through Josephine's marriage to Napoleon Bonaparte, she was
to become one of the most famous seers of all France. She was reputedly highly skilled in
both cartomancy and palmistry but seems to have relied more on her prophetic and intuitive
skills in which Napoleon himself, at least, placed considerable confidence in. Her
approach, therefore, is more akin to a Renaissance chiromancer than to a modern
chirologist and indeed we see this reflected in the types of marks and formations which
she recorded and presumably worked from in her interpretation of hands. The illustrations
she has left us of both Napoleon's and Josephine's hands are replete with all manner of
mysterious signs and occult symbols that one would never expect to see in any palm at all!
Of the three main occult sciences, only physiognomy saw any progressive
development in the eighteenth century. Johann Lavatar (1741-1801) was a Swiss Protestant
minister from Zurich with a strong interest in mysticism. His treatise of c.1775 'Physiognomische
Fragmente' was the first reasoned and methodical treatise on the subject acceptable
to the eighteenth century mentality and its success was such that it was immediately
translated into several European languages. Whilst he has very little to say about the
study of hands, he at least recognised the individuality of the patterns they present. His
work quite revolutionised the study of physiognomy and undoubtedly provided some impetus
for the further study of both the form of the body and the form of the hand in the
nineteenth century. Lavatar's physiognomical studies influenced both Francois Gall, who
went on to develop phrenology, and Casimir D'Arpentigny who was to become one of the
leading figures in the study of chirognomy.