Sulla chiromanzia

Since antiquity, human beings have invented different methods in order to predict the future. Chiromancy, also said ‘palmistry’, is one of the most ancient, diffused, and long–lasting of these ‘arts of the future’. The paper investigates it from several points of view: history—from the first mentions in Aristotle until the modern times —; anthropology— the relation between palmistry and nomadism —; philosophy— chiromancy as a distraction from existential angst —; and especially semiotics: hands as formal patterns that chiromancers can turn into the unintentional signifier of a mysterious signified: the destiny of human beings. The article concludes by formulating the hypothesis that palmistry as well as the other ‘arts and techniques of the future’ proliferate mostly in those periods and socio–cultural contexts in which the variables of existence seem to completely escape any capacity of rational prevision.