After being made a prisoner during the 13th century wars between Italian cities, and convicted of treason, Ugolino della Gherardesca was imprisoned in February 1289 in the Tower of Hunger in Pisa, along with his two sons and two grandsons. The keys to the tower were thrown into the river so that they would starve to death. Ugolino, the last survivor, was condemned to Hell after watching his children die and eating their flesh. Inspired by the Laocoon in the Vatican Museum, Rodin represented Ugolino seated, biting his hands, his feet flexed one over the other, while his dying children dragged themselves behind him (1860, bronze, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). The third maquette for The Gates of Hell shows a seated Ugolino, but Rodin then decided to follow the text by Dante more closely, "Thus, I saw them all (...) falling one by one (...) so much so that not seeing them any more, I threw myself, screaming and crawling, over their lifeless bodies, calling them two days after they died, and calling them again, until hunger extinguished in me what pain had left." Rodin had it enlarged by Henri Lebossé between 1901 and 1904. The big plaster, deposited by the Rodin Museum at the Musée d'Orsay in 1986, shows some distinctive variations from the small model. As the enlargement was carried out in fragments and assembled in the studio of Rodin under his supervision, he was able to make some major changes. The big bronze model, on the other hand, is faithful to the version on The Gate.
