Sternutomancy, Augury, and the Art of Reading Faces

The mysterious figure of Michael Scot (1175-1235) is shrouded in dark legend. He has come to represent for many the imaginative epitome of the Medieval necromancer. Despite this sinister reputation, Michael Scot, a scholar, priest and possibly a Franciscan friar, was highly esteemed as a physician, mathematician, philosopher, linguist and astrologer. During his own lifetime Scot’s most famous and celebrated work was undoubtedly his great Liber Physignomiae, a veritable treasure trove of late Medieval wisdom and lore.

Although the Liber Physignomiae was widely circulated and frequently cited in the late Medieval and early Modern eras, it remains largely untranslated to the present day. This Guide offers for the first time in contemporary English some of the curious tracts from the Liber Physignomiae. Inside you will find the interpretation of augurs, the prognosticatory meaning of sneezes (the present translator has coined the word ‘sternutomancy’ for this practice, derived from the Latin word sternutare: to sneeze), as well as selections from Scot’s treatise on the art of reading faces and various features of the face (which was a key part of the discipline of medieval physiognomy). 

As to their accuracy and reliability as divinatory tools or as methods of determining character, we leave it for others to test and judge; for, as always, experientia est optima rerum magistra.

Sternutomancy, Augury, and the Art of Reading Faces
from the Liber Physiognomiae of Michael Scot
Translated and introduced by Fr Robert Nixon
Cover image Michael Scot in Bodleian 'De physionomiae', MS. Canon. Misc. 555, fol. 059r, 13th century. Public domain.
ISBN 978-1-915933-37-9
A Guide to the Underworld.
16 pages.