The Cannibal Count of Pisa

of eternal agony. Those souls who are condemned to this the ninth circle of Hell, the circle reserved for traders. We're all frozen in various configurations according to the kind and depth of their betrayal. We get this chilling depiction of Hell from Dante's Inferno, the first part of his

Divine Comedy, which he completed around thirteen twenty one. The poem is the story of Dante imagining himself journeying through Hell with the ancient Roman poet Virgil as his guide, meeting various characters along the way and contemplating the nature

of sin and the soul. Of course, in the story, Dante and Virgil make their way through the concentric sections of the lake called Cocitus after the mythical Greek River of Lamentation in the underworld, and they eventually come upon two men frozen together in the ice, one in front of the other. Dante thought it was odd the men

were so close that their heads were practically touching. As Dante and Virgil got closer, their confusion turned to horror as they realized that the man behind was in fact continuously gnawing through the skull of the man in front of him, a gruesome element in their eternal torment aghast. Dante asked the gnawing man who he was and why

he had been sentenced to such a fate. The poor soul took a break from his meal, wiped his face on a remaining patch of hair on the other man's head, and began to tell his story of betrayal and horror. His name, he told them, was Ugolino de la Guerridesco, a disgraced peasan nobleman who had died some thirty years prior. Ugolino, by his own admission, had led a treasonous life, always willing to betray comrades, friends, and even family in the

pursuit of more his traitorous ways. Finally came to an end, however, after he betrayed the Archbishop of Pisa, the man who was now frozen in front of him during a riot in the city. Enraged, the archbishop betrayed Ugolino, in turn having him and his children imprisoned in a tower, before throwing the key in the river and leaving them to starve. After several days, Ugolino told the visitors his children saw their father bite his knuckle in grief and mistook it

for hunger. With a sudden panic, they asked him to eat their bodies when they died, so that he might survive if only for a bit longer. Father, our pain will lessen if you eat us, they begged. Ugolino had tried to calm his children, but it did little good, and soon it no longer mattered, as their already frail bodies began to weaken one by one. Over the course of two agonizing days, Ugolino outlived each of his children.

He grew hungrier by the minute. As the tortured soul trapped in the frozen lake finished his tale, Dante and Virgil realized exactly why his punishment was what it was eternal cannibalism. Looking up at the writer and the poet from his frozen tomb, Ugolino cried, quote, 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.

I'm Danish schwartz, and this is noble blood. Thirteenth century Italy could be a brutal place. Ugolino de la Gardesca grew up amidst a long standing conflict that centered on the tension between the ambitions of the Pope and his papal states on one hand, and the Holy Roman Emperor on the other. The inciting debate, known as the investiture controversy, began in the early twelfth century, and it was a question over whether secular rulers or the Pope had the

authority to appoint in areas bishops and abbots. Over time, the ruling families of the city states of northern Italy began to take their sides on the issue, with the Holy Roman Emperor's supporters being known as Gibelines and the popes as Guelphs. The Geradesca family were of Germanic descent, and their ties to the Hoefenstauffen emperors made them the leaders of the Gibelin faction in Pisa, where Ugolino was born.

The conflict died down to some extent in the late twelfth century, but was revived shortly after Ugolino's birth around twelve ten twelve fourteen. Like many dynastic rivalries throughout history, conflicts arose both over the quote unquote main conflict and increasingly over personal and political squabbles between the involved parties.

There is much more to the longstanding conflicts and entanglements between the Ghibeline and Gwelf families, but for our purposes it's mostly important to understand that Ugolino's personal and political life was defined by pretty constant conflict. Pisa was a Gibeline outpost surrounded by several powerful Gwelf city states, notably Genoa and Florence. The early years of Ugolino's life are pretty unclear to us, but we know that as he

came of age, he accumulated power, experience, and connections. He also accumulated children at least ten or eleven split between two marriages, as well as at least one child born out of wedlock. Ugolino's early career was defined by military successes,

particularly as a naval commander. In the wake of a twelve fifty eight victory against the Genoese sympathetic judicate of Calliari in Sardinia, he founded the silver mining city of Via de Quisa on the island's west coast, rejuvenating the existing town and building a castle, a hospital, and a defense wall. That city still exists today, known by its

Spanish name Iglesia. This victory would have had Ugolino on a high he had defeated the Genoese, even if by proxy, and cemented his own legacy through the founding of a city. It would also have earned him popularity amongst his fellow Gibelins in Pisa. But, as would become clear over the next several years, Ugolino was far more interested in growing his own power than in serving the interests of the

Peasan nobility or their political faction. By the early twelve seventies we find Ugolino already barreling towards his first accusation of treason. He began to arouse the suspicions of his fellow Gibelins in twelve seventy one, when he married his daughter off to Giovanni Visconti, the judge or ruler of Galura, another Sardinian judicate. The Visconti were among the most powerful

Gwelph families in Pisa and the surrounding areas. Ugolino had bound his flesh and blood to the enemy under different political circumstances that might have been seen as a diplomatic move. Countless royal marriages throughout history, many of which we've covered on this podcast, were diplomatic marriages meant to soothe dynastic rivalries or prevent disputes over succession, even to merge kingdoms

to accumulate more power for both families or parties. But the deeply entrenched nature of the rivalry between the Gebelins and the Guelphs, and the geographically precarious position Pisa was in as a Gebeline city surrounded by Gwelf power, meant that Ugolino's marriage brokering was seen as very suspicious, and in fact, it seems unlikely that his motives were diplomatic.

The marriage resulted mostly in increased tension between the Gibilins and Guelphs and an opportunity for Ugolino himself to grab at more wealth and power. Over the next few years, Pisa was beset by riots led by none other than Ugolino and his son in law Giovanni Visconti. In twelve seventy four, their involvement in these riots came back to

bite them. Giovanni was exiled and Ugolino imprisoned. When Giovanni died in exile the following year, it was Ugolino's turn to be sent away, and he spent the next few years in Sardinia until Charles, the first of Anjou, helped to engineer his return to Pisa. Upon his return, Ugolino went right back to leading Pisa as a military commander. His sins seemingly were given and forgotten. However, another opportunity to grab yet more power soon fell right into Ugolino's lap.

On August fifth and sixth, twelve eighty four, Pisa fought Genoa in a naval battle that would come to be known as the Battle of Milura. Ugolino had been appointed to captain a naval fleet by the Podesta, or head magistrate of Pisa, Albertino Morrissini. The battle was a disaster for Pisa. Genoa not only enjoyed a decisive victory, but also managed to capture over twenty eight Peasan ships and eleven thousand Peason soldiers, including the Podesta himself, along with

a significant portion of the city's nobility. Ugolino, however, had managed to escape Genoa's clutches in a move that would be interpreted as calculated by later writers, although it doesn't seem to have been seen that way at the time. He got away by signaling his surrender to the Genoese and withdrawing from the battle. Now there was a power vacuum in Pisa, and with much of the nobility in Genoese custody, there really was only one choice for who

should serve as the new Podesta. Why Ugolino della Garadeska. Of course, Two years later, in twelve eighty six, he was also appointed Captain of the People, although in this he was forced to share power with his grandson, Giovanni's son Nino Visconti. It was something of an uncomfortable pairing a Ghibeline and a Guelph ruling together. In twelve eighty seven, Nino was elected to the position of Podesta, upsetting the

already delicate balance of power between the two warring factions. That, of course, did not sit well with the power hungry Ugolino, and worse, while his own gwelf grandson challenged his power from within, Pisa gwelth powers Florence and Luca were beginning to advance from the outside, along with PISA's longtime rival Genoa. Ugolino managed to pacify Florence and Luca by relinquishing some landholdings and castles. When Genoa suggested the same in return

for the Peasan prisoners, Ugolino hesitated. He was already fighting his grandson for supremacy. What was going to happen if all of the other nobles returned to the city. Ugolino's wheels began to turn, but so did his grandson Nino's. It was becoming increasingly clear that the two could not ruled together peacefully, and a struggle for power seemed imminent.

In twelve eighty seven, Nino turned to the Archbishop of Pisa, a leader of the Gibeline nobility, asking for his support were he to make a play for the position of Podesta, permanently. The archbishop seemed sympathetic to Nino's cause and agreed to help him. Ugolino got wind of these negotiations and was incensed. He responded with what amounted to a coup. He expelled from the city not only Nino, his grandson, but also several of the remaining powerful Gibelin families, destroying their palaces

in the process. Ugolino and his militia occupied the town hall, where he proclaimed himself the Lord of Pisa. What had been a republic was now an absolute monarchy, with Ugolino at its own. To prevent his grandson from taking power back, Ugolino allowed the return of several of the exiled noble families to Pisa, offering safety and a modicum of power

in exchange for their support. This had the additional benefit of placating the archbishop, who rewarded Ugolino with his loyalty by refusing to help Nino attempt to regain power in the city. Ugolino had finally reached the pinnacle of power in Pisa. It had taken a lot of backstabbing to get there. He had betrayed his political faction, his superiors practically in entire cities worth of nobles and even his own grandson. But he had made it to the top.

But it would soon turn out there was one betrayal left in his feverish quest to retain control of Pisaino betray the very archbishop who had helped secure his path to power. By twelve eighty eight, it seemed Ugolino de la Geradesca had successfully claimed all of the power he could ever want. He was the sole lord of Pisa, with practically no nobles left in the city to oppose him, and a truce with the archbishop, which meant that the nobles who had returned would be loyal, at least for now.

All that meant, however, that when increasing prices and food shortages hit the city, the starving populace had no one else to blame except Ugolino. Ravenous and panicking, the city quickly descended into chaos. Riots erupted as hungry citizens turned on each other in desperation. They also turned on their Podesta, demanding Ugolino restore the balance, lower the prices, find new food sources, whatever it would take to reverse their fortunes.

Ugolino attempted to quash the unrest, and in the process committed one final betrayal that sealed his fate. During one of these food riots, Ugolino made his way through the unruly crowd, fighting back angry citizens calling for bread. Wielding his sword indiscriminately, He just so happened to kill Farinata of Pisa, one of the archbishop's nephews. The archbishop was incensed.

It was a tragedy on top of indignity. Amidst the riots, Ugolino's stonewalling of Genoa had continued, and the scores of still captive nobles had sworn revenge against the Podesta for their predicament aka allowing them to still be hostages. It became clear to the archbishop that nothing was sacred to Ugolino, and he would betray anyone, kill anyone, just to hold on to his power. The archbishop had finally had enough,

and he began to hatch a plan. Some months later, on July first, twelve eighty eight, Ugolino attended a council meeting to discuss peace with Genoa. Some sources say that the archbishop lured Ugolino to the meeting, pretending that he wished to lend his support to the Podesta against attempts by the still biitter Nino Visconti, his grandson, to regain control of Pisa from his grandfather. It was, in any case a trap. As Ugolino left the meeting, he was

attacked by a band of armed Gibeline nobles. He and his supporters managed to hold off the attackers at first, and they barricaded themselves in the town But the safety of Ugolino's makeshift sanctuary would not last long, as the archbishop, making his own betrayal clear, began to rouse the citizenry against Ugolino. It wasn't hard, and the archbishop quickly and successfully turned the desperation of the Peasan people against their Podesta.

Ugolino was a trader. He had betrayed not just the captive nobles, not just Pisa, but every last citizen of the republic who toiled and starved and died while he prospered. Ugolino found that he had no choice but to surrender. Once flames began to lick the edges of the town hall's windows and doors, and smoke began to fill his aged lungs. In the course of the unfolding riot outside, someone had set fire to the town hall to force

the podestap from his hiding place. Ugolino was captured alongside two of his sons and two of his grandsons, and the archbishop imprisoned the five of them together. Ugolino stood accused of treason. The archbishop chose to hang his hat on the castles that Ugolino had taken from the nobles and ceded to Florence and Luca. The archbishop argued that this amounted to treachery against Pisa, although it was clear to just about everyone that for many the archbishop included,

the betrayal was far more personal. The archbishop took the opportunity to declare himself the new Podesta of Pisa, giving himself nearly unchecked power when it came to deciding upon a punishment for the deposed Ugolino and his captured heirs, and with his rival now in charge, Ugolino must have known that his punishment would be brutal, but the depth of the Archbishop's vengeance would lead him to sentence Ugolino and his family to a fate far worse than he

could have ever imagined. The Torre Delamuda, also called the Torre del Gualandi now forms part of the Palazzo del Orolojo, which houses the library of the Scuola Normale Superiore, PISA's public university. It sits in a large square where visitors can take in a number of historical buildings, including the other part of the palazzo, which once was the seat

of the Peasan government. The facade of the tower itself boasts some faded fragments of frescoes that give viewers a tantalizing glimpse into what must have once been a magnificently adorned building. What tends to draw the eyes of visitors about the Torre de la Muda most, however, is not its frescoes or even its surroundings, but a plaque that sits at eye level as one approaches the building. If you go to Pisa, take a break from the famous

leaning tower and try to find it. Upon reading the plaque, one might understand how the tower got its third name, the Torre de la Fame, the Tower of Hunger. The plaque translates to read, here stood the Torre de Gualandi. The tragic death of Count Ugolini Delaga Ordesca gave it the title of Hunger, and sparked in the Divine Allegery, indignation and a poem so that the memory of this

miserable event will be eternal. In March twelve eighty nine, Ugolino della Geradesca, two of his sons and two of his grandsons, who I should note were all most likely fully adults, despite the way they had been implied in Dante's poem to have been children, were still awaiting their

fate in the Torre de la Moudha. They had been imprisoned months prior by the Archbishop of Pisa, who had proclaimed himself Podesta after leading a popular resistance against Ugolino's despotic and ineffective regime, but really also Ugolino's murder of the archbishop's nephew. The time that passed did not seem to have softened the archbishop's anger, and of course, now

the archbishop also had his own power to defend. After months of not only deliberating on his rival's fate, but likely also in enjoying keeping him and his family in limbo, the archbishop came to a decision that Ugolino must die for his crimes, and so must his heirs, at least those heirs that he had in his custody, but executing them in any of the usual ways beheading, which was typical for the execution of nobles, hanging, even bludgeoning, ran

the risk of making them into murders. Even with someone like Ugolino, executing a whole family, a noble family for its patriarch's crime would seem excessive, and the archbishop couldn't afford to lose even an ounce of support, and so he needed a route that was quieter, more private. In March twelve eighty nine, he finally found one that was not only quiet and private, but sufficiently cruel to quench

his thirst for revenge. He ordered that the prisoners remain in their cell and that the key be thrown away. Ugolino and his family members were sentenced to death by starvation. Although the walk from the Mudah to the River Arno could only have taken a couple of minutes, it must have felt longer for whatever servant, soldier or magistrate carried out the archbishop's order. But the archbishop was far too

angry to reverse course, and in reality he couldn't. Although Ugolino was at this point elderly at roughly seventy five or eighty years old, and likely frail after months of imprisonment, he was still the man who had nearly gotten Pisa all to himself. He would never let the archbishop live if he got free, and so the ad hoc executioner, whoever he was, walked south from the tower, the key

to the Moudah jingling softly in his hand. He reached the Arno, and perhaps after a moment of hesitation, threw the keys in the river. They sank down and settled into the murky river bed, any hope of a reprieve or even a different kind of punishment sinking along with them. The five bodies were removed from the tower and buried once it was clear that all five of them had died.

To cement their infamy and put on just the right amount of spectacle to placate the people and preserve his own power, the archbishop slash Podesta raised Ugolino's house on the southern bank of the Arno, salted the land, and forbade any of his remaining family or heirs from rebuilding on it. And though writers over time have tended to paint the story as a complete wiping out of Ugolino

and all of his heirs. Ugolino did have remaining sons, daughters, and grandchildren, and in fact still has living descendants, and they indeed were not allowed to rebuild. To this day, the land on which his palace once stood is the only green space in Pisa that overlooks the Arno. Of course, the story of Ugolino de la Gardesca did not end with his death or even the fates of his land

and descendants. The gruesome suggestion that Ugolino ate the flesh of his children and grandchildren to survive once they had perished has overpowered his legacy. He is known as the cannibal Count. Whether or not Ugolino or any of his children for that matter, actually engaged in survival cannibalism during their imprisonment has been a matter of intense scholarly debate.

The whispers of cannibalism seemed to have been somewhat contemporary with the deaths of Ugolino and the family members, but the story really gained traction through Dante's retelling of the tale a few decades later. From there it took off, and before long it became hard to tell where history ended and legend began. The story as Dante told it

certainly rings apocryphal. A father, already forced to watch his family suffer and die for his own sins, faced with one last cruel indignity before the hunger took him too. It's a little on the nose. There's also the matter

of Ugolino's advanced age. While we can't discount the possibility that his son's or grandson's deaths were hastened by illness or some other factor, it seems unlikely that a nearly eighty year old old man would outlive all of them, especially after he too had suffered after months of imprisonment

in likely harsh conditions. Additionally, although survival cannibalism under dire circumstances is certainly not unheard of, it was recorded during the Crusades, for example, not to mention better known and more recent examples like the Jamestown Colony or the Donner Party. Studies on the behavior of incarcerated people in particular have suggested that it would be an unlikely outcome in this case. But even as scholars began to doubt the veracity of

the cannibal legend, it has persisted. In popular culture. The influence of Dante's telling, in particular, has inspired countless works of art, film, and literature that take for granted this morbid morsel of Ugolino's story and parley it into meditations on the poisonous nature of power and the cruel consequences

of betrayal. For a while, it was believed that the question of cannibalism had finally been settled when in two thousand and two, Italian anthropologist Francesco Milegni claimed to have confirmed a set of excavated remains to be Ugolino and

his family and found no evidence of cannibalism. In addition to not finding telltale signs of cannibalism like teeth marks, Milenni pointed in particular to Ugolina's advanced age and the poor state of his teeth, arguing that it would have been exceedingly unlikely for the elderly man to have outlived his family members, let alone consumed their flesh. In fact, he found no zinc in his bones, indicating that he hadn't eaten any kind of meat in some time before

his death. The anthropologist also noted a head injury that might have contributed to death. Before starvation. The evidence against

cannibalism seemed to be overwhelming. That is until a few years later, in two thousand and eight, when Millennie's findings were called into question by the Superintendent of Archival Heritage of Tuscany, Paula Benini, who claimed that the documents Milennie had used to find these supposed Garadsky bodies had been forged in the twentieth century, during Italy's period of fascist rule.

And so although it remains unlikely that Dante's gruesome tale is true to life, with that little bit of uncertainty, the legend of the cannibal count lives on. That's the gruesome story of Ugolino della Gerdeska's death and afterlife. But keep listening after a brief sponsor break, to hear about another famous depiction of his ordeal. The nineteenth century sculptor Auguste Rodan is perhaps most famous for his Thinker, but that pensive piece was in fact just one of many

of Rodin's bronze cast masterpieces. Rodin was fascinated by Dante, and a number of his sculptures feature characters from the Inferno or the Divine Comedy. More broadly, Ugolino's story had a particularly strong impact, its themes of anguish, consumption, and betrayal, offering a tantalizing set of subjects for a sculptor to

bring to life. Instead of recreating Dante's lake scene, Roden chose to depict Ugolino with his children and Where earlier sculptors and artists, most notably Jean Baptiste Carpo, had chosen to depict the moment Ugolino bit his knuckle and his fingers asked him to eat their bodies when they died, Rodin instead showed Ugolino bending anguished over the bodies of his already dead children, perhaps imagining the very moment before. In Dante's words, hunger had more power than sorrow over him.

Rodin's take on Ugolino's story is well known on its own, but it is also noted as an essential component of one of the sculptor's most famous Dante inspired works, The Gates of Hell. The Gates of Hell, which Rodin worked on on and off for over thirty seven years from its commission in eighteen eighty until his death in nineteen seventeen, saw the sculptor utilize many of his individual sculptures, including

the thinker as component parts. The result is a nearly twenty foot tall sculpture that looks like a set of doors, but is in fact a collection of figures, a dizzying scene of eternal damnation. Standing back from the sculpture, you get an almost sickening sense of movement as your eyes catch and then lose track of figures, both human and otherwise, twisted in agony. It's almost as though the gates themselves

are pulsing and twisting along with their tormented decorations. When you get closer, the figures come into sharper focus, highlighting each distinct tortured part of the whole. It's that closer look that allows you to see just about in the middle of the left door, Rodin's Ugolino and his children. Clearly Rodan chose to include the sculpture showing Ugolino agonizing over his dead children, perhaps about to consume their flesh.

His children are harder to make out, some of them seemingly milded into the background of the door, but Ugolino and his tortured expression are prominent. The effect is as striking as Dante himself described. They are frozen forever in their torment, devouring and yet never sated, pun and punishing until the end of time. Noble Blood is a production of iHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.

Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Forts, with additional writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zewick, Courtney Sender, Julia Milani, and Armand Cassam. The show is edited and produced by Noehmy Griffin and rima il Kaali, with supervising producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. F More podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.