Giambattista della Porta was an Italian scholar and playwright perhaps best known for his esoteric work Natural Magic. The illustrations I have for you today are taken from his 1586 publication De Humana Physiognomonia.

Phisiognomy is the is the assessment of a person’s character or personality from their outward appearance, most notably, their face. Della Porta’s serious and convincing system attempted to establish models for different characteristics by  juxtaposing human and animal types. He proposed that the qualities possesed by certain creatures may also be found in man. For example, the wide, clearly defined mouth of a sheep and a ‘sheeplike’ man implied a stupidity and impiety common to both.

Despite the serious nature of the subject matter I found these fantastic illustrations to be great fun. I especially like the ‘lionface’ pictured above – I can’t help but think of the cowardly lion character from the Wizard of Oz when I look at it!

I found these images at the Historical Anatomies on the Web exhibition which is part of the of the US National Library of Medicine which has over 70,000 image available online.

You can see more illustrations from this book on FLICKR – HERE

Or you can download a zip file of all 22 illustrations HERE.