Yet this familiar version of Wolsey (1470/1–1530) comes not from a contemporary likeness, but from a portrait painted towards the end of the sixteenth century, at least six decades after Wolsey’s death. It may be based on a contemporary portrait of him, but if so the original has not survived. Not only is there a lack of visual evidence for Wolsey’s appearance, we also lack detailed written descriptions. One Venetian ambassador, Sebastian Giustinian, judged him to be “very handsome”, and another described him as “hale and of good presence” — neither description helps to answer the question of the cardinal’s physique. Hostile biographers have typically assumed that Wolsey was indeed a very fat man; more sympathetic historians have been more sceptical, with Peter Gwyn arguing that “there has to be a suspicion that since his death the poor cardinal’s girth has increased, even as his fame has diminished!” The truth is, we don’t know (and almost certainly never will know) what Wolsey actually looked like.