Notwithstanding recent attempts to reconstruct his physiognomy from remains of his skull, no one knows what Dante really looked like. A death mask exists but there is no trustworthy historic testimony concerning it. The two earliest portraits in the gallery, one in the Bargello and the other in the former Palazzo dei giudici e notai are distinctly different from on another. Neither can be definitively confirmed as a true likeness of Dante. Medieval and Renaissance portraits were loosely derived from Boccaccio's and Villani's descriptions of the poet, In his Life of Dante, Boccaccio reports that Dante's face was "long, his nose aquiline, his eyes rather large than small, his jaws heavy, with the under lip projecting beyond the upper. His complexion was dark, and his hair and beard, black, and crisp; and his countenance always sad and thoughtful." As this selection of portraits shows, the features which have been most frequently preserved are the poet's aquiline nose, dark hair, and thoughtful countenance. Through the ages artists have portrayed Dante's physiognomy in a fascinating variety of ways.