Head line
Thought, strategy and decision-making. How the person structures ideas and faces choices.
The first living encyclopedia of hands: read, vote, compare, share.
Participatory archive — voting, readings and shared opinions
Add your hand. Become a page of the book
Upload a palm photo and a brief bio. HandsBook generates an AI-assisted symbolic reading of mind, heart and life; you approve or edit it, then share it inside a growing interactive catalog.
Free participation · Community votes · Editorial review · A living reference for palmists worldwide.
Add your handjoin the encyclopedia42hands read
7languages
2026since
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Published hands with name, age, profession, place, joined date and community votes.
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Open a published hand to read, compare and vote. The archive is designed as a plural catalog where different lives, readings and opinions can meet.
About
A participatory encyclopedia of the hand
HandsBook.it wants to build the first interactive digital catalog of hands: a shared archive where each palm can become a small symbolic document, readable by the public and useful to palmists, researchers and curious readers worldwide.
The idea is simple: instead of looking only at faces, we collect the part of the body that acts, works, touches, builds and remembers. Every approved profile can be read, compared and voted by the community.
The project sits between magazine, archive and participatory platform. It is designed to grow through many contributors, many interpretations and a slow exchange of readings, votes and editorial perspectives.
Method
How we read a hand
Each profile is built around three classical palm lines, read together as a composition. The reading combines the morphology of the hand with the short statement the subject writes about their current life.
Heart line
Emotion, intimacy and relational style. The temperature of affection, and how it is shown.
Life line
Vitality, energy and direction. Resilience, recovery, and long-term orientation.
⏱ Just 3 minutes
The whole ritual takes about three minutes
Palm photo · (bio, thoughts on mind/heart/life and privacy preferences are optional — you choose what to share)
This is a symbolic and interpretive reading — editorial in spirit. It is not a medical evaluation, a scientific claim, or a prediction of the future.
Upload a clear palm photo, without showing your face.
Add a public name, email, age and a short bio.
Generate mind, heart and life, then refine the text.
Choose what to publish, accept privacy terms and submit.
Origins
Between symbol, science and forbidden art
Palmistry, also called chiromancy, has always lived on a border: part observation, part ritual, part storytelling. Encyclopaedia Britannica describes it as the reading of character and future through the lines and undulations of the hand, with uncertain origins and traces across India, China, Tibet, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt and ancient Greece.
In medieval Europe the hand became a suspicious manuscript. Marks on the skin could be read as signs of destiny, temperament, sin, illness or pact. During the Renaissance, chiromancy returned as one of those arts that tried to look rational while remaining dangerously close to divination, witchcraft and theatre.
HandsBook does not claim to prove fate. It uses the old vocabulary of the palm as a poetic instrument: the head line becomes a way to speak about thought, the heart line about affection, the life line about energy and direction. The hand is treated as a symbolic page, not as a scientific verdict.
Historical reference: Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Palmistry”.
About the founder · Chi c'è dietro
A project born from the study of gesture
Gianluigi Ruju
Founder & Editor · HandsBook
Milan, Italy
«My hands. They don't touch screens, they mould matter. Marked by resin, tempered by iron, hard as rock. Do they look like a designer's hands?» — JanRuju Unbalanced, artist of madness, "on the right side".
Born in Milan on January 19, 1967, Capricorn, sustainable artist. Grew up «on an island. Not in the sea, but in Milan, between Lido and Monte Stella: an oasis of meadows and mighty trees, escaped from concrete». His playground was tumbling among trees, building forts, devouring cartoons. His first artwork, at age eight: a miniature sewer system built with garden branches. «From there I never stopped: dismantling, reassembling, creating. I was a MacGyver with a runaway Meccano set.»
At the art high school he arrived a bit by chance, following his sister's footsteps, in a Milan "da bere" of occupations, demonstrations and religion teachers locked in classrooms. «I was reserved. Solitary. Different. A strange guy: at art school I would taste the watercolours.» Declared philosophy: «cycles and recycles of creativity applied to sustainable ideas». Self-declared role: Creative, Art Director, Project Manager, Interior & Designer.
Technical training (1987–1995) — Forum Colorum Srl (Herberts Italia / Hoechst Group): from Commodore 64 to Silicon Graphics — the workstation that cost 200 million lire at the time, the same used for Who Framed Roger Rabbit. 3D Computer Creative and Computer Department Manager on Thompson Digital Image TDI Explore. 7 years 5 months.
Forty years of companies and projects (1993–present):
- Misterbit Srl Computer Graphics + Tatum Srl Advertising Events (Owner, GM, ArtDirector — 1993–2004, 11 years)
- Ejan Wearable Sculptures — Alien Jewelry Rings: wearable artworks (Creator, Sculptor, since January 2000 — 26 years)
- Jahel Snc — Design Showroom, Event Location, Art Gallery (GM, 2003–2006)
- Mi Querida Srl — Interior Design across Italy, Spain, Austria, Principality of Monaco (GM, ArtDirector, 2003–2007)
- Scart-I Solidarity and Creativity Arts – Italy, Social Cooperative NGO (Founder, President, ArtDirector, Curator, since 2005 — 21 years)
- TMC Pubblicità Srl — Creative & Events Division (GM, 2008–2010)
- InnScena Srl — Events, Set Design (Consultant ArtDirector, since 2008 — 18 years)
- Officina Idee Verdi — sustainable events for the City of Milan, City of Parma, Lombardy Region (GM, 2010–2013; brand since 2009)
- Resinati Mentali and The Resinism — international collective art movement on epoxy resin (ArtDirector, Copyright Ruju, since March 2014)
- Alien Sculptures / Prototophe · Sensual Art of unique sculptures
- SpazioAlieno — AlienArts Lab and Location, 522 m² in Via Selvanesco 57, Milan. Non-profit Cultural Association, heart of SpaceSynergy. President and Artistic Director (since 2020). Founded under the presidency of Arch. Marco Gilberti (prematurely deceased)
- Arteinresina.it — Exclusive scenographic surfaces, over 25 years of experience with epoxy resin (Owner and Art Director, since February 2020)
In 2007 he co-authored with Giuseppe Iavicoli Puzzle4Peace, installation at Milan Design Week — Codice a Barre, Tortona district, 20 April 2007. In 2013, legal action against Bayer for plagiarism. In 2016 the Milan Court recognized full copyright protection for the installation: Italian precedent in contemporary art copyright. Evolved into Puzzle4Planet, POP · Pieces Of Peace, P4P Lab. Other projects: SellOne · The Saddle-Couch, Gli Artmobilisti.
In 2026 he relaunched Forum Colorum · The Italianness and founded HandsBook — the first participatory encyclopedia of human palms. Vol. 0 on Kickstarter in Fall 2026.
Outside his workshop, Gian shares his life with Grace, a Siberian-Husky-mix rescued from Puglia with one eye, adopted after the loss of Stella "Stellastar Sasabobo" — his inseparable star, a tripod-warrior who taught him the purest resilience.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
What is HandsBook?
HandsBook is a participatory archive of hands: a digital catalog where people submit a palm photo, receive a symbolic reading, approve it and share it with the community.
Is this scientific?
No. The reading is symbolic and editorial. It does not claim medical, psychological or predictive validity, but it can become an interesting cultural document for palmists and readers of hand symbolism.
How does participation work?
Upload a palm photo, add essential details and a short bio, generate the AI-assisted reading, edit it, approve it and send it for editorial review.
How do votes work?
Published hands can be voted by readers. Voting helps the archive become participatory: people can discover, compare and support the readings that resonate most.
Who is the archive for?
For participants, curious readers, artists, palmists and anyone interested in the hand as a visual, symbolic and human document.