bavarikon4UJohann Hartlieb, Buch von der Hand (Book on the Hand)
Johannes Hartlieb (ca. 1400-1468), a personal physician at the Munich court of Albrecht III (1401-1460) since 1440, was a political consultant, diplomat and author of factual texts and literary works. He wrote his "Chiromantia", an introduction to the art of palm reading with 44 illustrations, in 1448 for the wife of the duke, Anna von Braunschweig. Interpreting a wide variety of phenomena as future indicators, the Middle Ages are the legacy of Greek-Arab science. Hartlieb's "Chiromantia", the first one in German, is a striking example of this with its practical instructions on palmistry.
The introductory text is followed by depictions of men's and women's hands arranged in pairs; the pictures show a left female hand and a right male hand with lines and markings. Attached scrolls point out what the features suggest about the person's characteristics and fates. As a result, the lines of fate of adventurers, lucky devils, jinxed people, magicians etc. are shown and interpreted but also different kinds of joy and suffering in love.
Hartlieb's work is only preserved in one single print, a block book printed on both sides in four editions without the year and place (most likely Augsburg) after 1480.