Which pair of sinners are frozen together in the ninth circle of Hell?

Ugolino and Ruggieri are the pair of sinners frozen together in the ninth circle of Hell.

Dante encounters them in Antenora, the second ring of Cocytus, the frozen lake at the bottom of Inferno. This region is reserved mainly for traitors to their country or political party. Count Ugolino della Gherardesca is depicted with his teeth fixed into the skull of Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini.

Their punishment reflects the political betrayal behind their story. Ugolino had been a powerful leader in Pisa, but Ruggieri turned against him, imprisoned him with his sons and grandsons, and left them to die in the Torre della Muda. Dante gives Ugolino a long, haunting account of starvation and grief, while Ruggieri remains silent beneath his gnawing victim.

Readers sometimes confuse this scene with Paolo and Francesca, the famous lovers punished in the second circle for lust. They are not frozen together. Ugolino and Ruggieri’s episode instead belongs to Dante’s lowest realm, where ice—not fire—symbolizes the coldness and denial of human bonds involved in treachery.