Agreed. It seems as though the author has perhaps not seen that many people, as both the works shown and referenced depict entirely plausible humans. The “duche

Agreed. It seems as though the author has perhaps not seen that many people, as both the works shown and referenced depict entirely plausible humans. The “duchess” could be a middle aged woman with untreated acromegaly. Hell, maybe she was, as a male acromegalic ancestor could have done well on the battlefield. Today’s dysgenic traits are yesterday’s eugenic. The woman depicted looking left in the sketch is either missing her upper teeth due to decay, or has a cleft pallet. An awful lot of the variety of the human form that once was is no more in the developed and even developing world, as disease and treatable deformity are generally avoided where possible - and back then, if you were covered in pox scars, syphilitic, toothless and half blind from cataracts - well, you were 35, and lucky to be alive with a thriving family. I’m struggling to think of anywhere on earth where the kind of conditions Renaissance cities still persist, and I am drawing a blank. We just don’t have that point of reference as a tangible reality any more.