ABSTRACT
Physiognomy, as studied and practiced in Carrara Padua, was hermeneutically rich and brought together ideas about the body and soul, medicine and visual art, and politics and moral philosophy. This chapter focuses on how physiognomy served as a nexus of medicine, art, moral philosophy and politics in Padua to understand how Francesco Novello mobilised physiognomy in his own patronage. In medicine, perceiving the relationship between the physical body and the invisible personality helped the physician to determine the best ways to treat a patient's illness. In humanistic and devotional literature and in art, mapping characteristics onto the physical body or associating them with heraldic imagery helped authors/artists to better instruct the individual readers/viewers about moral virtue. For Francesco Novello, the physiognomy implicit in portraiture became a way of connecting to his ancestors' patronage of humanists and artists while consolidating his identity as a good and moral prince educated in the most current scientific theories and medical practices.
