Ugolino della Gherardesca
Ugolino then obtained the southwestern portion of the former Judicate, with its rich silver mines, where he founded the important city of Villa di Chiesa, today Iglesias.
[2] The subsequent disorders in the city in 1274 led to the arrest of both Ugolino and Giovanni, who were accused of plotting to undermine Pisa's government and, with the support from Tuscany's Guelphs, share power among themselves.
[3] When Florence and Lucca took advantage of the naval defeat to attack Pisa, Ugolino was appointed podestà for a year and succeeded in pacifying them by ceding certain castles.
When Genoa suggested peace on similar terms, Ugolino was less eager to accept, for the return of the Pisan prisoners, including most of the leading Ghibellines, would have diminished his power.
[2] Ugolino, now appointed capitano del popolo for ten years, was now the most influential man in Pisa but was forced to share his power with his nephew Nino Visconti, son of Giovanni.
[2] Irish poet Seamus Heaney also recounts the legend in his poem "Ugolino", a free translation from Dante, found in his 1979 book Field Work.
Dante placed Ugolino and Ruggieri in the ice of the second ring (Antenora) of the lowest circle of the Inferno, which is reserved for betrayers of kin, country, guests, and benefactors.
Ugolino's punishment involves his being entrapped in ice up to his neck in the same hole with his betrayer, Archbishop Ruggieri, who left him to starve to death.
As Dante describes it, 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.
According to Frances Yates, 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.
Additional comparison to DNA from modern-day members of the Gherardesca family leave Mallegni about 98 percent sure that he has identified the remains correctly.
Analysis of the rib bones of the Ugolino skeleton reveals traces of magnesium, but no zinc, implying he had consumed no meat in the months before his death.
[7][8] In 2008, Paola Benigni, superintendent to the Archival Heritage of Tuscany, disputed Mallegni's findings in an article, claiming that the documents assigning the burial to Ugolino and his descendants were Fascist-era forgeries.
