In early modern Europe a small group of books on the art of physiognomy claimed to provide self-knowledge through an interpretation of external features. Porter... » 

In early modern Europe a small group of books on the art of physiognomy claimed to provide self-knowledge through an interpretation of external features. Porter uses remnants of these texts to interpret the way that these books were read and viewed and to trace the changes that took place between the Middle Ages and the beginning of Romanticism. «