Which Rodin sculpture portrays Ugolino from Dante’s Inferno?

Auguste Rodin’s sculpture portraying Ugolino from Dante’s Inferno is Ugolino and His Sons.

The work represents Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, a medieval Pisan nobleman described in Dante’s Divine Comedy. In the Inferno, Ugolino is imprisoned with his sons and grandsons in a tower and condemned to die by starvation. Rodin focused on the desperate physical and emotional intensity of the episode rather than presenting a conventional heroic figure.

Ugolino and His Sons was conceived as part of The Gates of Hell, Rodin’s monumental project inspired largely by Dante. The figures’ contorted bodies and dramatic grouping show how Rodin used literary subjects as opportunities to explore movement, suffering, and psychological tension.

The sculpture is often confused with The Thinker because both originated in connection with The Gates of Hell. The Thinker represents a solitary contemplative figure, whereas Ugolino is a multi-figure scene based on a specific episode from Dante’s poem.