Pisa desired that the Archbishop should for the future divide the power with Ugolino.  To this Ugolino would not agree, and in a rage he slew the nephew of the Archbishop.  Meanwhile, Ugolino’s nephew, Nino Visconti, was plotting with him to return.  This came to the ears of Ruggieri, who called the Ghibellines to arms, and at last succeeded in capturing Ugolino and his family, after days of fighting.  Well had Marco Lombardo, that “wise and valiant man of affairs,” told him, “The wrath of God is the only thing lacking to you.”

“Of a truth,” says Villani, the old Florentine Chronicler,—­“of a truth the wrath of God soon came upon him, as it pleased God, because of his treacheries and crimes; for when the Archbishop of Pisa and his followers had succeeded in driving out Nino and his party, by the counsel and treachery of Count Ugolino the forces of the Guelphs were diminished; and then the Archbishop took counsel how to betray Count Ugolino; and in a sudden uproar of the people he was attacked and assaulted at the palace, the Archbishop giving the people to understand that he had betrayed Pisa, and given up their fortresses to the Florentines and the Lucchesi; and, being without any defence, the people having turned against him, he surrendered himself prisoner; and at the said assault one of his bastard sons and one of his grandsons were slain, and Count Ugolino was taken and two of his sons and three grandsons, his son’s children, and they were put in prison; and his household and followers, the Visconti and Ubizinghi, Guatini and all the other Guelph houses, were driven out of Pisa.  Thus was the traitor betrayed by the traitor....  In the said year 1288, in the said month of March ... the Pisans chose for their captain Count Guido of Montefeltro, giving him wide jurisdiction and lordship; and he passed the boundaries of Piedmont, within which he was confined by his terms of surrender to the Church, and came to Pisa; for which thing he and his sons and family and all the commonwealth of Pisa were excommunicated by the Church of Rome, as rebels and enemies against Holy Church.  And when the said Count was come to Pisa ... the Pisans, which had put in prison Count Ugolino and his two sons, and two sons of Count Guelpho his son ... in the tower on the Piazza degli Anziani, caused the door of the said tower to be locked and the keys thrown into Arno, and refused to the said prisoners any food, which in a few days died there of hunger.  And albeit first the said Count demanded with cries to be shriven; yet did they not grant him a friar or a priest to confess him.  And when all the five dead bodies were taken out of the tower, they were buried without honour; and thenceforward the said prison was called the Tower of Hunger, and will be always[31].”