De Anatomia humani Corporis On the Anatomy of the Human Body

intellectual, which is posterior, near the nuchal nape area, it serves the heart. That which is discussed and judged, it keeps. Whence it is seen by some that a man, distracted in hearing, is unable to grasp the part to be imagined. It does not permit imposition, and by the measure of the mind, it is lost. Ingenuity indeed is in the depth, memory in the depth. Therefore, those who have, or who ought to have, power in ingenuity, have this memory. Those who have not, because they are not vigorous in memory but in ingenuity, are as if sitting. The soul, which is a certain thing, is easily marked by the impression of a seal, but this quality of the image is easily deleted. Others, the impression is difficult, it receives fortune, but once accepted, it does not lose it. There are signs of virtue and vice which Aristotle, in On Animals, says by which a man may be known in the face, in the figure of those things, because they are brought to the soul original: "ex ziio" — unclear, perhaps ex zoio (from animals), because they are from vice, or they turn to vice, or to habit, or to another nature. He says that when the forehead is wrinkled, it signifies shame, heavy weight, directed? to stupidity. When it is fluid smooth, it signifies goodness. When it was wide, it signifies the gravity of discretion. When it was round, it signifies irascibility. Under the forehead are the eyebrows, which if they were such that the line is just, it signifies softness and femininity and flexibility.

If they were actual and curved? up to the bridge of the nose, they signify gentleness, subtlety, and studiousness in all his works, and boldness. If the density was inclined to the temples up to the protrusion of the cheekbones, they signify negligence and a bad disposition. Under the eyebrows are the eyes, which are upon the corporeal skin, upper and lower, in two tracts; one is graduated and as it is seen to the pupil, what follows is in the entry of the odors, and the parts are the angles. These are near the bridge of the nose and the protrusion of the cheeks, and the tracts of the upper and lower [eyelids], and the labor is evil, and what follows is the anguish. If the eye was subtle, it signifies those having a disposition to malice and habit, and ... ?. If, however, the tear-duct was between the regions, the eye was very cunning and of evil formation. Therefore, if the eyelashes were lowered, it was provident. The whiteness of the eye is almost similar in all men. The blackness, however, varies. It may be very strong and signify great placidity, and it may be dusty, and it may incline toward redness, and thus it will have a disposition sufficient for goodness, habit, and silence of discretion. When some of the eyes were of this kind, some yellow, some black, some brown, some large, some not average, which signifies goodness of discretion in these, and good doctrine, and they will be prominent and profound, or average. Depth signifies acuity, prominence signifies perturbation, distraction, and malice.