Mount of Venus and the other mounts of the hand

The mount of Venus is the padded base of your thumb, and palmistry reads it for warmth and affection. It is one of a set of mounts, the raised areas of the palm that the tradition names after planets. They are not bumps on a map: a mount is simply a pad of the hand with a name attached. Here is where each one sits, what the old books say, and how to tell full from flat.

The mount of Venus

Cheiro's description is the standard one: the part of the palm "under the base of the Thumb and inside the Line of Life." Anatomists call this pad the thenar eminence, the mound at the base of the thumb formed by the thumb's own group of muscles. A 2019 study of the life line notes the same thing from the other side, describing the line as running along it. So the mount of Venus is real muscle that you use every time you grip, and the life line is more or less the crease at its border. (Outside palmistry, the same name belongs to a different part of the body. If you search for it, add the word hand.)

What it is read for. Warmth, the desire for company and a love of beauty. The old books call it a sign of "a desire for love and companionship, the desire to please, worship of beauty in every form", and he says it is usually prominent in the hands of artists and musicians. Markun's survey says Venus is "usually higher than any other" of the hills, which makes sense given how much muscle sits under it.

What a large or flat mount of Venus is said to mean. A full mount reads as warm and outgoing. A flat one, the books say, reads as cool, though you should weigh that against the anatomy: the pad is largely muscle, which depends on your build and what your hand does all day. Someone with a flat thenar pad isn't a colder person for it, and nothing shows otherwise.

How to feel it. Open your hand, relax your thumb and press the pad gently with the other hand. Now do the same on your other hand. Press, release, and see how quickly it comes back.

How many mounts are there?

It depends on the book. Markun counts "seven muscular projections". Cheiro has seven planet names, but Mars gets two positions, which makes eight places on the hand. A caption in Wikipedia's palmistry article lists ten: it splits Mars into positive and negative, adds a plain of Mars, and adds a Neptune mount. Since Neptune wasn't observed until 1846, that last one must be fairly new. No authority settles this, so we show nine areas and tell you where the sources part ways.

Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo and Mercury, under the fingers

These four run in a row, and on most hands you'll struggle to separate them. Each takes the name of the finger above it, since each finger has its planet too. Markun adds that a good mount should sit not directly beneath a finger but "rather between two of them", which tells you how loosely the map is meant.

The mount of Jupiter is the one people look up most after Venus. The old books read a large one for leadership and warn that it needs a clear head line to go with it. Markun is funnier about how vague it gets: "Its most important characteristic is pride, unless perhaps it is religion, ambition, honor, gaiety, a love of nature, or agricultural ability." Many heart lines finish under it.

Saturn, under the middle finger, gets the serious qualities. It is where a rising fate line is headed. The mount of Apollo is the opposite in mood: the old books connect it with enthusiasm for the beautiful and call it "always considered a good Mount to have large". If a line runs up to it, that is the sun line. Mercury, under the little finger, is for quick wits and trade, and it spills over onto the palm's edge, where the marriage lines are read.

Mars in two places, and Luna opposite Venus

Mars shows how unsettled the map is. Cheiro puts one mount right under the top of the life line and reads it for physical fight, then puts another opposite it, between the heart and head lines, and reads that one for mental control. Markun's sources put the main Mars near the outer edge, with a plain in the middle, and mention a second mount "under the thumb and below the Mount of Venus", which isn't where Cheiro has it. You won't be able to feel most of these as separate pads.

The mount of Luna, also called the Moon, is much easier. It is the heel of your hand across from the thumb: the old books have it "on the base of the hand under the end of the Line of Head". It is read for imagination, which is why readers care when a head line slopes towards it. If you rest your hand on a table, that is the part that takes the weight.

Why are the mounts named after planets?

Because palmistry grew up beside astrology. Markun explains it in one sentence: since "both the hands of the individual and the stars which had been dominant at the moment of his conception were supposed to show his fate, parts of the hand were given astrological names and held to be ruled by the various planets." That is why the qualities match the old astrological character of each planet: Saturn sombre, Venus warm, Mercury quick.

Who first did it is less clear. Cheiro says the names "were given to the Mounts by the Greek students of this subject", and offers no source. Markun places the connection with the medieval physiologists. We couldn't verify either, so the honest position is that the astrological link is old, and its starting point isn't known. The history of palmistry page has more on how little of this can be dated.

How to judge a mount as full or flat

• Press and watch. Markun's books want a mount "firm to the touch and developed evenly." Soft and spongy doesn't count as full.
• Compare your hands. Your writing hand probably works harder, so a difference between the two may tell you more about your day than about you.
• Allow for what the hand does. Markun, who thought palmistry was superstition, granted one thing: you can often recognise a day labourer or a chemist from their hands. Work builds muscle and callus, and that is about the limit of what a pad can reliably tell you.
• Compare mounts on one hand. The old books care most about which one stands out, and less about absolute size. Markun: "The mount which is highest indicates the qualities which predominate."

We don't measure this on the scan, and it would be misleading if we did: a photo can't separate height from shadow. That is one thing your thumb does better than a camera.

Reading mounts together with hand type and lines

The books don't read a mount alone. They tell you to weigh Mercury against the head line. Markun's sources say a strong Jupiter on a square hand shows respect for authority, and on long smooth fingers a love of luxury. So check your overall shape with the hand type test, find everything at once on the palm reading chart, and see how the mounts fit into a full reading in the palm reading guide. All of this is tradition to think with, and none of it has been tested. The one line that has been tested, the life line, did not hold up.