Speaker 1: Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of iHeartRadio and Grimm
Speaker 1: and Mild from Aaron Manky listener discretion advised. According to
Speaker 1: the medieval Italian writer Dante Alighieri, in the Lowest Circle
Speaker 1: of hell sits a frozen lake. At first, that might
Speaker 1: not sound so bad, kind of a winter wonderland vibe.
Speaker 1: That is, until you take into account the countless heads
Speaker 1: and bodies sticking out of the ice and their screams
Speaker 1: of eternal agony. Those souls who are condemned to this
Speaker 1: the ninth circle of Hell, the circle reserved for traders.
Speaker 1: We're all frozen in various configurations according to the kind
Speaker 1: and depth of their betrayal. We get this chilling depiction
Speaker 1: of Hell from Dante's Inferno, the first part of his
Speaker 1: Divine Comedy, which he completed around thirteen twenty one. The
Speaker 1: poem is the story of Dante imagining himself journeying through
Speaker 1: Hell with the ancient Roman poet Virgil as his guide,
Speaker 1: meeting various characters along the way and contemplating the nature
Speaker 1: of sin and the soul. Of course, in the story,
Speaker 1: Dante and Virgil make their way through the concentric sections
Speaker 1: of the lake called Cocitus after the mythical Greek River
Speaker 1: of Lamentation in the underworld, and they eventually come upon
Speaker 1: two men frozen together in the ice, one in front
Speaker 1: of the other. Dante thought it was odd the men
Speaker 1: were so close that their heads were practically touching. As
Speaker 1: Dante and Virgil got closer, their confusion turned to horror
Speaker 1: as they realized that the man behind was in fact
Speaker 1: continuously gnawing through the skull of the man in front
Speaker 1: of him, a gruesome element in their eternal torment aghast.
Speaker 1: Dante asked the gnawing man who he was and why
Speaker 1: he had been sentenced to such a fate. The poor
Speaker 1: soul took a break from his meal, wiped his face
Speaker 1: on a remaining patch of hair on the other man's head,
Speaker 1: and began to tell his story of betrayal and horror.
Speaker 1: His name, he told them, was Ugolino de la Guerridesco,
Speaker 1: a disgraced peasan nobleman who had died some thirty years prior. Ugolino,
Speaker 1: by his own admission, had led a treasonous life, always
Speaker 1: willing to betray comrades, friends, and even family in the
Speaker 1: pursuit of more his traitorous ways. Finally came to an end, however,
Speaker 1: after he betrayed the Archbishop of Pisa, the man who
Speaker 1: was now frozen in front of him during a riot
Speaker 1: in the city. Enraged, the archbishop betrayed Ugolino, in turn
Speaker 1: having him and his children imprisoned in a tower, before
Speaker 1: throwing the key in the river and leaving them to starve.
Speaker 1: After several days, Ugolino told the visitors his children saw
Speaker 1: their father bite his knuckle in grief and mistook it
Speaker 1: for hunger. With a sudden panic, they asked him to
Speaker 1: eat their bodies when they died, so that he might
Speaker 1: survive if only for a bit longer. Father, our pain
Speaker 1: will lessen if you eat us, they begged. Ugolino had
Speaker 1: tried to calm his children, but it did little good,
Speaker 1: and soon it no longer mattered, as their already frail
Speaker 1: bodies began to weaken one by one. Over the course
Speaker 1: of two agonizing days, Ugolino outlived each of his children.
Speaker 1: He grew hungrier by the minute. As the tortured soul
Speaker 1: trapped in the frozen lake finished his tale, Dante and
Speaker 1: Virgil realized exactly why his punishment was what it was
Speaker 1: eternal cannibalism. Looking up at the writer and the poet
Speaker 1: from his frozen tomb, Ugolino cried, quote, and I already
Speaker 1: going blind, groped over my brood, calling to them, though
Speaker 1: I had watched them die for two long days. And
Speaker 1: then the hunger had more power than even sorrow over me.
Speaker 1: I'm Danish schwartz, and this is noble blood. Thirteenth century
Speaker 1: Italy could be a brutal place. Ugolino de la Gardesca
Speaker 1: grew up amidst a long standing conflict that centered on
Speaker 1: the tension between the ambitions of the Pope and his
Speaker 1: papal states on one hand, and the Holy Roman Emperor
Speaker 1: on the other. The inciting debate, known as the investiture controversy,
Speaker 1: began in the early twelfth century, and it was a
Speaker 1: question over whether secular rulers or the Pope had the
Speaker 1: authority to appoint in areas bishops and abbots. Over time,
Speaker 1: the ruling families of the city states of northern Italy
Speaker 1: began to take their sides on the issue, with the
Speaker 1: Holy Roman Emperor's supporters being known as Gibelines and the
Speaker 1: popes as Guelphs. The Geradesca family were of Germanic descent,
Speaker 1: and their ties to the Hoefenstauffen emperors made them the
Speaker 1: leaders of the Gibelin faction in Pisa, where Ugolino was born.
Speaker 1: The conflict died down to some extent in the late
Speaker 1: twelfth century, but was revived shortly after Ugolino's birth around
Speaker 1: twelve ten twelve fourteen. Like many dynastic rivalries throughout history,
Speaker 1: conflicts arose both over the quote unquote main conflict and
Speaker 1: increasingly over personal and political squabbles between the involved parties.
Speaker 1: There is much more to the longstanding conflicts and entanglements
Speaker 1: between the Ghibeline and Gwelf families, but for our purposes
Speaker 1: it's mostly important to understand that Ugolino's personal and political
Speaker 1: life was defined by pretty constant conflict. Pisa was a
Speaker 1: Gibeline outpost surrounded by several powerful Gwelf city states, notably
Speaker 1: Genoa and Florence. The early years of Ugolino's life are
Speaker 1: pretty unclear to us, but we know that as he
Speaker 1: came of age, he accumulated power, experience, and connections. He
Speaker 1: also accumulated children at least ten or eleven split between
Speaker 1: two marriages, as well as at least one child born
Speaker 1: out of wedlock. Ugolino's early career was defined by military successes,
Speaker 1: particularly as a naval commander. In the wake of a
Speaker 1: twelve fifty eight victory against the Genoese sympathetic judicate of
Speaker 1: Calliari in Sardinia, he founded the silver mining city of
Speaker 1: Via de Quisa on the island's west coast, rejuvenating the
Speaker 1: existing town and building a castle, a hospital, and a
Speaker 1: defense wall. That city still exists today, known by its
Speaker 1: Spanish name Iglesia. This victory would have had Ugolino on
Speaker 1: a high he had defeated the Genoese, even if by proxy,
Speaker 1: and cemented his own legacy through the founding of a city.
Speaker 1: It would also have earned him popularity amongst his fellow
Speaker 1: Gibelins in Pisa. But, as would become clear over the
Speaker 1: next several years, Ugolino was far more interested in growing
Speaker 1: his own power than in serving the interests of the
Speaker 1: Peasan nobility or their political faction. By the early twelve
Speaker 1: seventies we find Ugolino already barreling towards his first accusation
Speaker 1: of treason. He began to arouse the suspicions of his
Speaker 1: fellow Gibelins in twelve seventy one, when he married his
Speaker 1: daughter off to Giovanni Visconti, the judge or ruler of Galura,
Speaker 1: another Sardinian judicate. The Visconti were among the most powerful
Speaker 1: Gwelph families in Pisa and the surrounding areas. Ugolino had
Speaker 1: bound his flesh and blood to the enemy under different
Speaker 1: political circumstances that might have been seen as a diplomatic move.
Speaker 1: Countless royal marriages throughout history, many of which we've covered
Speaker 1: on this podcast, were diplomatic marriages meant to soothe dynastic
Speaker 1: rivalries or prevent disputes over succession, even to merge kingdoms
Speaker 1: to accumulate more power for both families or parties. But
Speaker 1: the deeply entrenched nature of the rivalry between the Gebelins
Speaker 1: and the Guelphs, and the geographically precarious position Pisa was
Speaker 1: in as a Gebeline city surrounded by Gwelf power, meant
Speaker 1: that Ugolino's marriage brokering was seen as very suspicious, and
Speaker 1: in fact, it seems unlikely that his motives were diplomatic.
Speaker 1: The marriage resulted mostly in increased tension between the Gibilins
Speaker 1: and Guelphs and an opportunity for Ugolino himself to grab
Speaker 1: at more wealth and power. Over the next few years,
Speaker 1: Pisa was beset by riots led by none other than
Speaker 1: Ugolino and his son in law Giovanni Visconti. In twelve
Speaker 1: seventy four, their involvement in these riots came back to
Speaker 1: bite them. Giovanni was exiled and Ugolino imprisoned. When Giovanni
Speaker 1: died in exile the following year, it was Ugolino's turn
Speaker 1: to be sent away, and he spent the next few
Speaker 1: years in Sardinia until Charles, the first of Anjou, helped
Speaker 1: to engineer his return to Pisa. Upon his return, Ugolino
Speaker 1: went right back to leading Pisa as a military commander.
Speaker 1: His sins seemingly were given and forgotten. However, another opportunity
Speaker 1: to grab yet more power soon fell right into Ugolino's lap.
Speaker 1: On August fifth and sixth, twelve eighty four, Pisa fought
Speaker 1: Genoa in a naval battle that would come to be
Speaker 1: known as the Battle of Milura. Ugolino had been appointed
Speaker 1: to captain a naval fleet by the Podesta, or head
Speaker 1: magistrate of Pisa, Albertino Morrissini. The battle was a disaster
Speaker 1: for Pisa. Genoa not only enjoyed a decisive victory, but
Speaker 1: also managed to capture over twenty eight Peasan ships and
Speaker 1: eleven thousand Peason soldiers, including the Podesta himself, along with
Speaker 1: a significant portion of the city's nobility. Ugolino, however, had
Speaker 1: managed to escape Genoa's clutches in a move that would
Speaker 1: be interpreted as calculated by later writers, although it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem to have been seen that way at the time.
Speaker 1: He got away by signaling his surrender to the Genoese
Speaker 1: and withdrawing from the battle. Now there was a power
Speaker 1: vacuum in Pisa, and with much of the nobility in
Speaker 1: Genoese custody, there really was only one choice for who
Speaker 1: should serve as the new Podesta. Why Ugolino della Garadeska.
Speaker 1: Of course, Two years later, in twelve eighty six, he
Speaker 1: was also appointed Captain of the People, although in this
Speaker 1: he was forced to share power with his grandson, Giovanni's
Speaker 1: son Nino Visconti. It was something of an uncomfortable pairing
Speaker 1: a Ghibeline and a Guelph ruling together. In twelve eighty seven,
Speaker 1: Nino was elected to the position of Podesta, upsetting the
Speaker 1: already delicate balance of power between the two warring factions. That,
Speaker 1: of course, did not sit well with the power hungry Ugolino,
Speaker 1: and worse, while his own gwelf grandson challenged his power
Speaker 1: from within, Pisa gwelth powers Florence and Luca were beginning
Speaker 1: to advance from the outside, along with PISA's longtime rival Genoa.
Speaker 1: Ugolino managed to pacify Florence and Luca by relinquishing some
Speaker 1: landholdings and castles. When Genoa suggested the same in return
Speaker 1: for the Peasan prisoners, Ugolino hesitated. He was already fighting
Speaker 1: his grandson for supremacy. What was going to happen if
Speaker 1: all of the other nobles returned to the city. Ugolino's
Speaker 1: wheels began to turn, but so did his grandson Nino's.
Speaker 1: It was becoming increasingly clear that the two could not
Speaker 1: ruled together peacefully, and a struggle for power seemed imminent.
Speaker 1: In twelve eighty seven, Nino turned to the Archbishop of Pisa,
Speaker 1: a leader of the Gibeline nobility, asking for his support
Speaker 1: were he to make a play for the position of Podesta, permanently.
Speaker 1: The archbishop seemed sympathetic to Nino's cause and agreed to
Speaker 1: help him. Ugolino got wind of these negotiations and was incensed.
Speaker 1: He responded with what amounted to a coup. He expelled
Speaker 1: from the city not only Nino, his grandson, but also
Speaker 1: several of the remaining powerful Gibelin families, destroying their palaces
Speaker 1: in the process. Ugolino and his militia occupied the town hall,
Speaker 1: where he proclaimed himself the Lord of Pisa. What had
Speaker 1: been a republic was now an absolute monarchy, with Ugolino
Speaker 1: at its own. To prevent his grandson from taking power back,
Speaker 1: Ugolino allowed the return of several of the exiled noble
Speaker 1: families to Pisa, offering safety and a modicum of power
Speaker 1: in exchange for their support. This had the additional benefit
Speaker 1: of placating the archbishop, who rewarded Ugolino with his loyalty
Speaker 1: by refusing to help Nino attempt to regain power in
Speaker 1: the city. Ugolino had finally reached the pinnacle of power
Speaker 1: in Pisa. It had taken a lot of backstabbing to
Speaker 1: get there. He had betrayed his political faction, his superiors
Speaker 1: practically in entire cities worth of nobles and even his
Speaker 1: own grandson. But he had made it to the top.
Speaker 1: But it would soon turn out there was one betrayal
Speaker 1: left in his feverish quest to retain control of Pisaino
Speaker 1: betray the very archbishop who had helped secure his path
Speaker 1: to power. By twelve eighty eight, it seemed Ugolino de
Speaker 1: la Geradesca had successfully claimed all of the power he
Speaker 1: could ever want. He was the sole lord of Pisa,
Speaker 1: with practically no nobles left in the city to oppose him,
Speaker 1: and a truce with the archbishop, which meant that the
Speaker 1: nobles who had returned would be loyal, at least for now.
Speaker 1: All that meant, however, that when increasing prices and food
Speaker 1: shortages hit the city, the starving populace had no one
Speaker 1: else to blame except Ugolino. Ravenous and panicking, the city
Speaker 1: quickly descended into chaos. Riots erupted as hungry citizens turned
Speaker 1: on each other in desperation. They also turned on their Podesta,
Speaker 1: demanding Ugolino restore the balance, lower the prices, find new
Speaker 1: food sources, whatever it would take to reverse their fortunes.
Speaker 1: Ugolino attempted to quash the unrest, and in the process
Speaker 1: committed one final betrayal that sealed his fate. During one
Speaker 1: of these food riots, Ugolino made his way through the
Speaker 1: unruly crowd, fighting back angry citizens calling for bread. Wielding
Speaker 1: his sword indiscriminately, He just so happened to kill Farinata
Speaker 1: of Pisa, one of the archbishop's nephews. The archbishop was incensed.
Speaker 1: It was a tragedy on top of indignity. Amidst the riots,
Speaker 1: Ugolino's stonewalling of Genoa had continued, and the scores of
Speaker 1: still captive nobles had sworn revenge against the Podesta for
Speaker 1: their predicament aka allowing them to still be hostages. It
Speaker 1: became clear to the archbishop that nothing was sacred to Ugolino,
Speaker 1: and he would betray anyone, kill anyone, just to hold
Speaker 1: on to his power. The archbishop had finally had enough,
Speaker 1: and he began to hatch a plan. Some months later,
Speaker 1: on July first, twelve eighty eight, Ugolino attended a council
Speaker 1: meeting to discuss peace with Genoa. Some sources say that
Speaker 1: the archbishop lured Ugolino to the meeting, pretending that he
Speaker 1: wished to lend his support to the Podesta against attempts
Speaker 1: by the still biitter Nino Visconti, his grandson, to regain
Speaker 1: control of Pisa from his grandfather. It was, in any
Speaker 1: case a trap. As Ugolino left the meeting, he was
Speaker 1: attacked by a band of armed Gibeline nobles. He and
Speaker 1: his supporters managed to hold off the attackers at first,
Speaker 1: and they barricaded themselves in the town But the safety
Speaker 1: of Ugolino's makeshift sanctuary would not last long, as the archbishop,
Speaker 1: making his own betrayal clear, began to rouse the citizenry
Speaker 1: against Ugolino. It wasn't hard, and the archbishop quickly and
Speaker 1: successfully turned the desperation of the Peasan people against their Podesta.
Speaker 1: Ugolino was a trader. He had betrayed not just the
Speaker 1: captive nobles, not just Pisa, but every last citizen of
Speaker 1: the republic who toiled and starved and died while he prospered.
Speaker 1: Ugolino found that he had no choice but to surrender.
Speaker 1: Once flames began to lick the edges of the town
Speaker 1: hall's windows and doors, and smoke began to fill his
Speaker 1: aged lungs. In the course of the unfolding riot outside,
Speaker 1: someone had set fire to the town hall to force
Speaker 1: the podestap from his hiding place. Ugolino was captured alongside
Speaker 1: two of his sons and two of his grandsons, and
Speaker 1: the archbishop imprisoned the five of them together. Ugolino stood
Speaker 1: accused of treason. The archbishop chose to hang his hat
Speaker 1: on the castles that Ugolino had taken from the nobles
Speaker 1: and ceded to Florence and Luca. The archbishop argued that
Speaker 1: this amounted to treachery against Pisa, although it was clear
Speaker 1: to just about everyone that for many the archbishop included,
Speaker 1: the betrayal was far more personal. The archbishop took the
Speaker 1: opportunity to declare himself the new Podesta of Pisa, giving
Speaker 1: himself nearly unchecked power when it came to deciding upon
Speaker 1: a punishment for the deposed Ugolino and his captured heirs,
Speaker 1: and with his rival now in charge, Ugolino must have
Speaker 1: known that his punishment would be brutal, but the depth
Speaker 1: of the Archbishop's vengeance would lead him to sentence Ugolino
Speaker 1: and his family to a fate far worse than he
Speaker 1: could have ever imagined. The Torre Delamuda, also called the
Speaker 1: Torre del Gualandi now forms part of the Palazzo del Orolojo,
Speaker 1: which houses the library of the Scuola Normale Superiore, PISA's
Speaker 1: public university. It sits in a large square where visitors
Speaker 1: can take in a number of historical buildings, including the
Speaker 1: other part of the palazzo, which once was the seat
Speaker 1: of the Peasan government. The facade of the tower itself
Speaker 1: boasts some faded fragments of frescoes that give viewers a
Speaker 1: tantalizing glimpse into what must have once been a magnificently
Speaker 1: adorned building. What tends to draw the eyes of visitors
Speaker 1: about the Torre de la Muda most, however, is not
Speaker 1: its frescoes or even its surroundings, but a plaque that
Speaker 1: sits at eye level as one approaches the building. If
Speaker 1: you go to Pisa, take a break from the famous
Speaker 1: leaning tower and try to find it. Upon reading the plaque,
Speaker 1: one might understand how the tower got its third name,
Speaker 1: the Torre de la Fame, the Tower of Hunger. The
Speaker 1: plaque translates to read, here stood the Torre de Gualandi.
Speaker 1: The tragic death of Count Ugolini Delaga Ordesca gave it
Speaker 1: the title of Hunger, and sparked in the Divine Allegery,
Speaker 1: indignation and a poem so that the memory of this
Speaker 1: miserable event will be eternal. In March twelve eighty nine,
Speaker 1: Ugolino della Geradesca, two of his sons and two of
Speaker 1: his grandsons, who I should note were all most likely
Speaker 1: fully adults, despite the way they had been implied in
Speaker 1: Dante's poem to have been children, were still awaiting their
Speaker 1: fate in the Torre de la Moudha. They had been
Speaker 1: imprisoned months prior by the Archbishop of Pisa, who had
Speaker 1: proclaimed himself Podesta after leading a popular resistance against Ugolino's
Speaker 1: despotic and ineffective regime, but really also Ugolino's murder of
Speaker 1: the archbishop's nephew. The time that passed did not seem
Speaker 1: to have softened the archbishop's anger, and of course, now
Speaker 1: the archbishop also had his own power to defend. After
Speaker 1: months of not only deliberating on his rival's fate, but
Speaker 1: likely also in enjoying keeping him and his family in limbo,
Speaker 1: the archbishop came to a decision that Ugolino must die
Speaker 1: for his crimes, and so must his heirs, at least
Speaker 1: those heirs that he had in his custody, but executing
Speaker 1: them in any of the usual ways beheading, which was
Speaker 1: typical for the execution of nobles, hanging, even bludgeoning, ran
Speaker 1: the risk of making them into murders. Even with someone
Speaker 1: like Ugolino, executing a whole family, a noble family for
Speaker 1: its patriarch's crime would seem excessive, and the archbishop couldn't
Speaker 1: afford to lose even an ounce of support, and so
Speaker 1: he needed a route that was quieter, more private. In
Speaker 1: March twelve eighty nine, he finally found one that was
Speaker 1: not only quiet and private, but sufficiently cruel to quench
Speaker 1: his thirst for revenge. He ordered that the prisoners remain
Speaker 1: in their cell and that the key be thrown away.
Speaker 1: Ugolino and his family members were sentenced to death by starvation.
Speaker 1: Although the walk from the Mudah to the River Arno
Speaker 1: could only have taken a couple of minutes, it must
Speaker 1: have felt longer for whatever servant, soldier or magistrate carried
Speaker 1: out the archbishop's order. But the archbishop was far too
Speaker 1: angry to reverse course, and in reality he couldn't. Although
Speaker 1: Ugolino was at this point elderly at roughly seventy five
Speaker 1: or eighty years old, and likely frail after months of imprisonment,
Speaker 1: he was still the man who had nearly gotten Pisa
Speaker 1: all to himself. He would never let the archbishop live
Speaker 1: if he got free, and so the ad hoc executioner,
Speaker 1: whoever he was, walked south from the tower, the key
Speaker 1: to the Moudah jingling softly in his hand. He reached
Speaker 1: the Arno, and perhaps after a moment of hesitation, threw
Speaker 1: the keys in the river. They sank down and settled
Speaker 1: into the murky river bed, any hope of a reprieve
Speaker 1: or even a different kind of punishment sinking along with them.
Speaker 1: The five bodies were removed from the tower and buried
Speaker 1: once it was clear that all five of them had died.
Speaker 1: To cement their infamy and put on just the right
Speaker 1: amount of spectacle to placate the people and preserve his
Speaker 1: own power, the archbishop slash Podesta raised Ugolino's house on
Speaker 1: the southern bank of the Arno, salted the land, and
Speaker 1: forbade any of his remaining family or heirs from rebuilding
Speaker 1: on it. And though writers over time have tended to
Speaker 1: paint the story as a complete wiping out of Ugolino
Speaker 1: and all of his heirs. Ugolino did have remaining sons, daughters,
Speaker 1: and grandchildren, and in fact still has living descendants, and
Speaker 1: they indeed were not allowed to rebuild. To this day,
Speaker 1: the land on which his palace once stood is the
Speaker 1: only green space in Pisa that overlooks the Arno. Of course,
Speaker 1: the story of Ugolino de la Gardesca did not end
Speaker 1: with his death or even the fates of his land
Speaker 1: and descendants. The gruesome suggestion that Ugolino ate the flesh
Speaker 1: of his children and grandchildren to survive once they had
Speaker 1: perished has overpowered his legacy. He is known as the
Speaker 1: cannibal Count. Whether or not Ugolino or any of his
Speaker 1: children for that matter, actually engaged in survival cannibalism during
Speaker 1: their imprisonment has been a matter of intense scholarly debate.
Speaker 1: The whispers of cannibalism seemed to have been somewhat contemporary
Speaker 1: with the deaths of Ugolino and the family members, but
Speaker 1: the story really gained traction through Dante's retelling of the
Speaker 1: tale a few decades later. From there it took off,
Speaker 1: and before long it became hard to tell where history
Speaker 1: ended and legend began. The story as Dante told it
Speaker 1: certainly rings apocryphal. A father, already forced to watch his
Speaker 1: family suffer and die for his own sins, faced with
Speaker 1: one last cruel indignity before the hunger took him too.
Speaker 1: It's a little on the nose. There's also the matter
Speaker 1: of Ugolino's advanced age. While we can't discount the possibility
Speaker 1: that his son's or grandson's deaths were hastened by illness
Speaker 1: or some other factor, it seems unlikely that a nearly
Speaker 1: eighty year old old man would outlive all of them,
Speaker 1: especially after he too had suffered after months of imprisonment
Speaker 1: in likely harsh conditions. Additionally, although survival cannibalism under dire
Speaker 1: circumstances is certainly not unheard of, it was recorded during
Speaker 1: the Crusades, for example, not to mention better known and
Speaker 1: more recent examples like the Jamestown Colony or the Donner Party.
Speaker 1: Studies on the behavior of incarcerated people in particular have
Speaker 1: suggested that it would be an unlikely outcome in this case.
Speaker 1: But even as scholars began to doubt the veracity of
Speaker 1: the cannibal legend, it has persisted. In popular culture. The
Speaker 1: influence of Dante's telling, in particular, has inspired countless works
Speaker 1: of art, film, and literature that take for granted this
Speaker 1: morbid morsel of Ugolino's story and parley it into meditations
Speaker 1: on the poisonous nature of power and the cruel consequences
Speaker 1: of betrayal. For a while, it was believed that the
Speaker 1: question of cannibalism had finally been settled when in two
Speaker 1: thousand and two, Italian anthropologist Francesco Milegni claimed to have
Speaker 1: confirmed a set of excavated remains to be Ugolino and
Speaker 1: his family and found no evidence of cannibalism. In addition
Speaker 1: to not finding telltale signs of cannibalism like teeth marks,
Speaker 1: Milenni pointed in particular to Ugolina's advanced age and the
Speaker 1: poor state of his teeth, arguing that it would have
Speaker 1: been exceedingly unlikely for the elderly man to have outlived
Speaker 1: his family members, let alone consumed their flesh. In fact,
Speaker 1: he found no zinc in his bones, indicating that he
Speaker 1: hadn't eaten any kind of meat in some time before
Speaker 1: his death. The anthropologist also noted a head injury that
Speaker 1: might have contributed to death. Before starvation. The evidence against
Speaker 1: cannibalism seemed to be overwhelming. That is until a few
Speaker 1: years later, in two thousand and eight, when Millennie's findings
Speaker 1: were called into question by the Superintendent of Archival Heritage
Speaker 1: of Tuscany, Paula Benini, who claimed that the documents Milennie
Speaker 1: had used to find these supposed Garadsky bodies had been
Speaker 1: forged in the twentieth century, during Italy's period of fascist rule.
Speaker 1: And so although it remains unlikely that Dante's gruesome tale
Speaker 1: is true to life, with that little bit of uncertainty,
Speaker 1: the legend of the cannibal count lives on. That's the
Speaker 1: gruesome story of Ugolino della Gerdeska's death and afterlife. But
Speaker 1: keep listening after a brief sponsor break, to hear about
Speaker 1: another famous depiction of his ordeal. The nineteenth century sculptor
Speaker 1: Auguste Rodan is perhaps most famous for his Thinker, but
Speaker 1: that pensive piece was in fact just one of many
Speaker 1: of Rodin's bronze cast masterpieces. Rodin was fascinated by Dante,
Speaker 1: and a number of his sculptures feature characters from the
Speaker 1: Inferno or the Divine Comedy. More broadly, Ugolino's story had
Speaker 1: a particularly strong impact, its themes of anguish, consumption, and betrayal,
Speaker 1: offering a tantalizing set of subjects for a sculptor to
Speaker 1: bring to life. Instead of recreating Dante's lake scene, Roden
Speaker 1: chose to depict Ugolino with his children and Where earlier
Speaker 1: sculptors and artists, most notably Jean Baptiste Carpo, had chosen
Speaker 1: to depict the moment Ugolino bit his knuckle and his
Speaker 1: fingers asked him to eat their bodies when they died,
Speaker 1: Rodin instead showed Ugolino bending anguished over the bodies of
Speaker 1: his already dead children, perhaps imagining the very moment before.
Speaker 1: In Dante's words, hunger had more power than sorrow over him.
Speaker 1: Rodin's take on Ugolino's story is well known on its own,
Speaker 1: but it is also noted as an essential component of
Speaker 1: one of the sculptor's most famous Dante inspired works, The
Speaker 1: Gates of Hell. The Gates of Hell, which Rodin worked
Speaker 1: on on and off for over thirty seven years from
Speaker 1: its commission in eighteen eighty until his death in nineteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: saw the sculptor utilize many of his individual sculptures, including
Speaker 1: the thinker as component parts. The result is a nearly
Speaker 1: twenty foot tall sculpture that looks like a set of doors,
Speaker 1: but is in fact a collection of figures, a dizzying
Speaker 1: scene of eternal damnation. Standing back from the sculpture, you
Speaker 1: get an almost sickening sense of movement as your eyes
Speaker 1: catch and then lose track of figures, both human and otherwise,
Speaker 1: twisted in agony. It's almost as though the gates themselves
Speaker 1: are pulsing and twisting along with their tormented decorations. When
Speaker 1: you get closer, the figures come into sharper focus, highlighting
Speaker 1: each distinct tortured part of the whole. It's that closer
Speaker 1: look that allows you to see just about in the
Speaker 1: middle of the left door, Rodin's Ugolino and his children.
Speaker 1: Clearly Rodan chose to include the sculpture showing Ugolino agonizing
Speaker 1: over his dead children, perhaps about to consume their flesh.
Speaker 1: His children are harder to make out, some of them
Speaker 1: seemingly milded into the background of the door, but Ugolino
Speaker 1: and his tortured expression are prominent. The effect is as
Speaker 1: striking as Dante himself described. They are frozen forever in
Speaker 1: their torment, devouring and yet never sated, pun and punishing
Speaker 1: until the end of time. Noble Blood is a production
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Manky.
Speaker 1: Noble Blood is hosted by me Danish Forts, with additional
Speaker 1: writing and researching by Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zewick, Courtney Sender,
Speaker 1: Julia Milani, and Armand Cassam. The show is edited and
Speaker 1: produced by Noehmy Griffin and rima il Kaali, with supervising
Speaker 1: producer Josh Thain and executive producers Aaron Mankey, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: and Matt Frederick. F More podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.