CHIROMANCY (from the Greek χειρ = hand and μαντεία = divination [Fr. chiromancie, Sp. quironancia, Eng. palmistry, Ger. Chironantie]). - Chiromancy is the doctrine and art that aims to investigate and discover, through the examination of the shape and marks (lines, protuberances, etc.) of the hand, everything concerning an individual, in the past, present, and future. The etymological definition is narrower and considers only the prediction of the future: in fact, properly and historically, divination is the power to know future things, communicated by God to men.
The doctrinal foundation of chiromancy is to be sought in the idea that the ancients had of man. The earth is the center of the universe. On earth, the center and culmination of physical, psychic, and natural virtues, is man. Man is thus the center and, in a certain way, the synthesis of the world, so that in human events the universal harmony is summarized and concluded. These are the concepts that inspired astrology, according to which the movements and events of the universe would have a correspondence and repercussion in man and in the course of his life. Thus, from the study of the motion and vicissitudes of the stars, it is believed and hoped that one can predict
ersch: "per se patet nullam illicitam exerceri divinationem ab iis qui ex vultu, membrorum dispositionem, lineis et partibus manus, scripturae notis, temperiem corporis, immo etiam animi propensiones et affectus probabiliter coniciunt" (Theologia moralis, II, Rome 1928, n. 244).
Historical note. - Chiromancy has been known since antiquity and may be said to have been practiced at all times and among all the most important ethnic groups, such as the Chinese, Indians, Greeks, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Hebrews, and Romans. For example, in antiquity, Aristotle (who describes the lines of the hand in relation to the duration of life), Pliny (Nat. Hist., XI, 275), who refers to Aristotle, Juvenal (VI, 581), and others, dealt with chiromancy. It flourished especially during the Renaissance through the work of many authors, among whom may be mentioned Paracelsus, Cardano, Battista della Porta (Physiognomonia et chiromantia, Bologna 1504), Alessandro Achillini (Opera omnia, Venice 1545), Giovan Battista della Porta (Della chirofisonomia, translated from Latin by P. Sarnelli, Naples 1677), etc. After almost disappearing from the beginning of the 17th century, chiromancy was restored to favor in France and throughout the world in the 19th century through the work of d'Arpentigny and Desbarolles.