Discovery Undercuts Dante Cannibal Tale

Cannibal Count Ugolino, imprisoned in Pisa’s Clock Tower in the 13th century, was not slowly starved and driven to eat the flesh of his own dead sons, as Dante Alighieri wrote in his famous “Inferno,” but was killed by a blow to the head after five months in prison, according to an Italian archeologist. Francesco Mallegni of the University of Pisa has found five skeletons buried in a crypt under a church in Pisa, along with a scroll saying they are the bones of the Ugolino clan.

All five men suffered from malnutrition during the last months of their lives, indicating they were poorly fed in prison, but they were killed long before they could starve to death. The count could not have eaten his sons, Mallegni said, because he had no teeth.

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Compiled by Times science writer Usha Lee McFarling