Portrait of Ezzelino III da Romano

Ezzelino da Romano ruled much of the Veneto in the mid-1200s as the strongman of the emperor's party in Italy, and he left a reputation for cruelty so heavy that it outlived every rival. Chroniclers charged him with mass killings and torture; whether all of it was true or sharpened by his enemies, the legend stuck fast. Dante placed him in Hell, sunk to the brow in a river of boiling blood among the tyrants. He fell in battle in 1259 and, badly wounded, tore off his bandages and refused all treatment rather than be a prisoner. A gallery meant to hold the world's famous men wanted the infamous ones too, which is how this medieval terror came to hang among popes and scholars.