Ugolino and Dante

Count Ugolino della Gherardesca was a person of a Ghibelline Pisan leader that Dante placed in the 9th circle of hell in "Inferno" because of his treason against his country. In the poem, Ugolino is found frozen in the ice of Antenora chewing on the head of his betrayer, Ruggieri the Archbishop of Pisa. Dante the Pilgrim asks the two men how it was that they came to be damned, and Ugolino turns his head and goes into a long discourse about how he died at the hands of Ruggieri and came to be in hell. But the historical Ugolino is very different than the Ugolino portrayed in "Inferno".

Political strife in Pisa

During the time of Ugolino and Dante, most of what we now call Italy was controlled by two political parties, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The Ghibellines believed in a Papal Empire with Italy as its center. The Guelphs believed in a secular, self-governed city-state. Until 1284, Pisa was a Ghibelline state run by Count Ugolino’s family; most of the surrounding city-states, however, were in Guelph control. Pisa’s main trading rivals and neighbors were Genoa and Florence, and even though both city-states were run by opposing parties, they were unfriendly to the Ghibellines in Pisa. These unfriendly surroundings forced Pisa to have a “strong and vigilant government” and a leader that was “armed with almost despotic power”“Count Ugolino of Pisa.” "Bentley’s Miscellany" 55 (1864): 173-78.] This leader was known as the Podestà. After the death of Count della Gherardesca, Ugolino became the head of the Gherardesca family, interim chief of the Ghibellines in Pisa and the new Podestà. Ugolino was determined to use his new post not for the good of his city, but for his own quest for power.

Ugolino’s treason

Ugolino’s thirst for power became apparent once he gained the post of chief of the Pisan Ghibellines. Ugolino, sensing that Genoa and other surrounding Guelphic states felt hostility towards the Ghibellines of Pisa, took action to preserve his post. He aligned himself with Giovanni Visconti of Gallura, the head of the Pisan Guelphs. This flirtation with both parties was the beginning of a series of betrayals that would eventually inspire Dante Alighieri to include Ugolino in his epic poem, "The Inferno", in the circle of the betrayers. Late in the 13th century, Ugolino and Giovanni Visconti devised a plan to gain support from sympathetic Guelphs in Tuscany in order to undermine the Pisan government. The ultimate goal was for Ugolino and Gallura to one day share power in Pisa.

In 1274, the plan was uncovered, Ugolino imprisoned, and Gallura banished from Pisa. Ugolino eventually freed himself from prison, and with the help of surrounding city states Florence and Lucca, he forced the Ghibellines of Pisa to surrender, and to pardon Guelphic exiles.

Ugolino then returned to Pisa but distanced himself from politics and leadership until 1284, when he was appointed commander of a Pisan fleet. Alberto Morosini, the Podestà, or dictator of Pisa, appointed Ugolino and Andreotto Saracini as captains of two divisions of fleets. A battle commenced against the opposing Genoese fleet and as the battle continued, the Genoese fought with great vigor, managing to capture a Pisan admiral, the Podestà. Throughout the battle, twenty-eight galleys were captured, seven were destroyed, five thousand men were killed, and eleven thousand were taken prisoner. Offering the sign of surrender, Ugolino ceased his participation in the battle, and once more, aided in the weakening and defeat of his countrymen for his own political gain. Suspicions rose and Ugolino faced allegations of treason for his destructive aid in weakening his homeland.

Ugolino in "The Inferno"

In Dante's "Inferno", the deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers of kin, country, guests, and benefactors. Count Ugolino of Pisa, who led a politically controversial life, finds himself in the 9th circle of hell surrounded by betrayers of country and party. It can be assumed that Ugolino’s tyrannical behavior and constant betrayal of the people of Pisa in life has earned him this distinction in the afterlife.

In this hell, Ugolino’s punishment involves his being entrapped in ice up to his neck in the same hole with Archbishop Ruggieri, Ugolino’s former ally, who had betrayed Ugolino by imprisoning him and his children and grandchildren in the Muda Tower and leaving them to starve to death. According to legend--a version of events that Dante used in "The Inferno" and thus helped popularize--Ugolino ate his children's flesh to delay his own starvation and was thus condemned to spend eternity gnawing on the skull of his betrayer. As Dante describes it, cquote
:I saw two shades frozen in a single hole:packed so close, one head hooded the other one;:the way the starving devour their bread, the soul:above had clenched the other with his teeth:where the brain meets the nape.(Canto XXXII, lines 21-25)Alighieri, Dante. "The Inferno". Translated and edited by Robert Pinsky. New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 1996]

The reason for Ugolino’s place in the ninth circle of hell is clear. However, the meaning behind the way that Dante chooses to depict him in the poem is open to interpretation. For example, why is it that Ugolino should spend eternity gnawing on the head of his betrayer? In her book, "The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy", Joan Ferrante suggests that the meaning of Ugolino’s gnawing of Ruggieri's head is that Ugolino's hatred for his enemy is so strong that he is compelled to “devour even what has no substance.” [Ferrante, Joan M. "The Political Vision of the Divine Comedy". Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984] Ugolino, though punished for his betrayal of his people, is allowed some closure for the betrayal that he himself was forced to suffer under Ruggieri, when he is allowed to act as Ruggieri’s torturer for eternity. “Both are suffering the torments of the damned in the traitors’ hell; but Ugolino is given the right to oppress … Archbishop Ruggieri with a ghastly eternal punishment which fits his crime.” [Yates, Frances A. “Transformations of Dante’s Ugolino.” "Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes" 14 (1951): 92–117] Ruggieri betrayed his former partner and forced Ugolino and his heirs to starve to death, so in effect, he is to serve as food for Ugolino, for eternity. At the same time, however, Ugolino is actually unable to consume Ruggieri: being dead, Ruggieri has no body, and Ugolino is thus condemned to spend eternity in endless starvation.

The legend of Ugolino and his children

It is believed that Dante’s allusion to cannibalism in canto XXXIII may have been what started the Ugolino
cquote
:… And I,:Already going blind, groped over my brood :Calling to them, though I had watched them die,:For two long days. And then the hunger had more:Power than even sorrow over me(Canto XXXIII, ln. 70-73)

Ever since Dante’s portrayal of Ugolino's imprisonment in the aptly named "Tower of Hunger" in Pisa, rumors have circulated concerning whether or not Ugolino may have eaten his children and grandchildren in order to stay alive. Popular belief in Italian culture stipulates that he ate his children after they died, extending his life by two days. However, at the time of his imprisonment, Ugolino was seventy and not in good health, while his children ranged in ages from twenty to forty, bringing the myth and Dante’s allusion into question.

Reference to the Eucharist, a main theme in Dante’s text, (a theme that appears again in Canto XXXIII with the eating of RuggIerO’s head and later in Canto XXXIV with a masticating Satan) is illustrated when Ugolino's children offer themselves to save him,cquote
:‘Father our pain’, they said,:‘Will lessen if you eat us you are the one:Who clothed us with this wretched flesh: we plead:For you to be the one who strips it away’ (Canto XXXIII, ln. 56–59).

In 2002, Francesco Mallegni of the University of Pisa, a paleoanthropologist renowned in his field, conducted DNA testing on the recently excavated bodies of Count Ugolino and his children and grandchildren who were condemned to the Famine Tower. [Nicole Martinelli, [http://nicolemartinelli.com/wordpress/wp-content/ugolino2.pdf "Dante and the Cannibal Count"] , "Newsweek", (1 February 2007)] After centuries of assumed cannibalism, the DNA evidence derived from Ugolino’s ribs proved that Ugolino had not consumed human flesh, or any meat whatsoever, within the last months of his life. In fact, Ugolino had lost most of his teeth, which would have made it difficult for him to partake in cannibalism. This proved that no cannibalism had taken place, relieving the Ugolino family of centuries of persecution. It also went to further the belief that Dante used the figure of Ugolino purely for his own literary end.

References

Works consulted

*Hollander, Robert. "Inferno XXXIII, 37-74: Ugolino’s Importunity". "Speculum" 59 (July 1984): 549–55.
*Spencer, Theodore. "The Story of Ugolino in Dante and Chaucer". "Speculum" 9 (July 1934): 295–301.
*Toynbee, Paget, "A Dictionary of the Proper Names and Notable Matters in the Works of Dante", Oxford University Press, 1968.
*http://princeton.edu/dante/ (1 February 2007)
*Gilbert, Allan H. "Dante’s Conception of Justice". Duke: Duke University Press, 1925.
*Chub, Thomas Caldecot. "Dante and His World". Boston: Little, Brown and Co. 1996.
*Raffa, Guy P. 2002. [http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/circle9.html#ugolino "Circle 9, Cantos 31–34"] . The University of Texas at Austin.
*Hollander, Robert. 1997. [http://etcweb.princeton.edu/dante/index.html "Circle 9"] The Trustees of Princeton University.
*Miller, James. 2005. "Dante & the Unorthodox; The Aesthetics of Transgression". Waterloo, Canada: Wilfrid University Press.

External links

* [http://www.worldofdante.org/ World of Dante] Multimedia website that includes a gallery of illustrations of the Ugolino episode.