The face as sign, systematic parameter, and text

The "anthropo-linguistic-geographical grammar" of the physiognomists of late nineteenth-century Italy.

Abstract

After Italy’s unification, the desire to codify an appropriate interdisciplinary grammar that would positivistically engage anthropology, linguistics and geography in dialogue intersected with the study of the face, its material support (namely, face) and conveyed expressions, which had set aside the previous tradition with Darwin’s study of the emotions. Rooted in a somatological context and with a prominent role of the linguistic element, the codification of mimicry fell under the blows of ideological constructs, highlighting in the main participants in the debate (Mantegazza, Lombroso, Pullè) an intrinsic betrayal (more or less unintentional) of the original intentions, which had at heart only the scientific datum, thus making the out-of-norm the object of the new distorted grammar.