Commentary Inf XXXIII 75

Did Ugolino ingest his children? For a history of the centuries-long debate see Hollander (Holl.1985.2). For a strong argument in favor of the notion, see Herzman (Herz.1980.1). To most, the position represented by Herzman and others, mainly (in recent years) Americans, seems a not convincing interpretation. In Singleton's view, it is a 'curious view,' one 'hardly worth a serious rebuttal' (DDP Singleton.Inf.XXXIII.75). This writer stands with Geoffrey Chaucer's view of the matter in the Monk's Tale, v. 2455: 'Hymself, despeired, eek for hunger starf' (and he, despairing, also [i.e., as the children had] died from hunger). One might wish that Chaucer had used a more specific term for starvation, but such a word or phrase might not have rhymed or scanned. 'Digiuno' (fasting) is not the same thing as 'hunger.' And surely Chaucer knew that, as is probably reflected in his actual choice of words anyway.

An observation in the commentary of Guido da Pisa also offers evidence that the number of days in the narrative (seven) is significant in this regard. Guido says, 'And lest it seem impossible that one could have lived six days without food, heed Macrobius on the Dream of Scipio. He says that the life of a man cannot last beyond seven days without food' (DDP Guido.Inf.XXXIII.37-45). Pietro di Dante thinks of a biblical passage that also involves a seven-day fast. David fasted for seven days when his son by Bathsheba was stricken, and then was convinced by the priests to resume eating, lest he perish, upon the death of the child (II Sam. 12.15-23). If Dante, with his so carefully calculated seven days to starvation, is aware of this bit of medical lore, Ugolino died at the limit of human endurance without nourishment. Had he ingested the flesh of his children, he would have lived longer. Further, when the corpses were exhibited outside the tower, after their removal, the scandal of the teeth-torn flesh would have made the rounds. No such story did, with the exception of a variant, somewhat suspect, in the text of the commentary of Jacopo della Lana. See Holl.1985.2, n. 24. For still another review of the question and a return to the cannibalistic reading see Franceschini (Fran.2001.1).

For another possible source of Ugolino's narrative and, in particular, its final verse, see Andreas Heil (Heil.2000.1), arguing for a series of references to elements in the scene between Andromache and Ulysses, in Seneca's tragedy Troades, especially Ulysses' speech, lines 578-587, concerning Andromache's grief-filled concern for her (and Hector's) son Astyanax. Line 581, 'necessitas plus posse quam pietas solet' (necessity tends to have more power than filial love), surely sounds close to Dante's 'Poscia, più che 'l dolor, poté 'l digiuno' (Then fasting had more power than grief). Heil is aware of the problem that we have no sure knowledge of Dante's reading in the tragedies of Seneca. He admits that he may have known passages from Seneca from various florilegia, but also suggests that the closeness to Seneca's words in this scene may point to a first-hand knowledge of the Troades.

A Reuters dispatch of 5 January 2002, beneath the headline 'Skeletons Found in Italy May Prove Dante Wrong,' relates that a Pisan paleontologist, Prof. Francesco Mallegni, has found five skeletons in a crypt in the church of San Francesco in Pisa, identified by a scroll as being the remains of the males in Ugolino's branch of the Gherardesca family. The condition of these, according to the dispatch, seems to indicate that Ugolino and his sons and grandsons, while malnourished, did not die of starvation. Mallegni also says that Ugolino himself was probably killed by a 'coup de grace' administered to his head. Along with these reasons for not believing in a thirteenth-century Pisan act of cannibalism, he also offers in evidence the fact that Ugolino's jawbones show an absence of teeth.