Dracula buried in Naples: the discovery of the Impaler Count, the mysterious inscription in Santa Maria La Nova deciphered.
The research
About ten years after the first conjectures, further clues to the hypothesis: the Prince of Wallachia buried in the complex in the Historic Center
Maradona and Pulcinella, Masaniello and Totò weren't enough: Count Dracula could also unexpectedly become one of Naples 's iconic and fetish characters. A decade or so after the first studies, further research confirms an extraordinary, yet tortuous, lead: that Prince Vlad III of Wallachia, known as "the Impaler," transformed into an iconic and immortal character of pop and horror culture, is buried in the Historic Center: specifically, in the Angevin-Aragonese complex of Santa Maria la Nova .
The story begins over ten years ago, when Lucanian researchers Raffaello and Giandomenico Glinni, supported by experts from Tallinn University, traced esoteric signs in the tomb of Aragonese notable Matteo Ferrillo near the complex that pointed to the voivode prince's burial place. Above all, a large dragon . They hypothesized that a possible daughter of the prince, Maria Balsa , had married a son of Ferrillo. The theory is that the daughter had ransomed the prince, taken prisoner by the Ottoman Turks; the two had found refuge together in Naples.
Upon her father's death, his daughter had the prince buried in her father-in-law's tomb. Inside the Turbolo Chapel , a mysterious epigraph dating back to the 16th century had already been found, with characters similar to those of Balkan languages. Experts ruled out the possibility: it was an unknown language, or rather, a sort of code . The deciphering of that mysterious inscription marked a turning point in recent days: according to a group of Romanian researchers led by Cristian Tufan, an expert in Byzantine patristics, and under the supervision of Mircea Cosma, President of the "Mihai Viteazul" historical-cultural society in Ploiesti, the inscription is a funeral eulogy for Prince Vlad. "To him who was killed twice by his enemies and was honored as a martyr, the ruler of the Wallachians, Vlad the Pious, who passed away in peace, always praising God, in the place where he is buried."
News of the eulogy—an enigma—was first reported by the newspaper Il Mattino , which also revealed the possible date of death: November 20, 1480. The news was revealed at a conference in Snagov, Romania, where the prince had always been thought to be buried. A conference will be held this fall at Santa Maria la Nova to return to the research, but not before a publication by Santa Maria la Nova in the coming weeks.
Vlad III of Wallachia was a 15th-century prince who countered the Ottoman invasion of Mehmet II into Europe, championing the Order of the Dragon , which opposed invasions from the East. He went down in history as "the Impaler" for the cruelty with which he confronted his enemies, a posthumous nickname derived from what was reputed to be the prince's preferred instrument of torture and destruction. He inspired Dracula, the vampire who, from the pen of Irish writer Bram Stoker, went on to massively colonize pop and horror culture like few other characters.
The new reconstruction would refute the traditional belief that Count Vlad died at the hands of the Turks in 1476. Supporting this theory is Cosma's discovery, in the annals of the National Museum of History in Romania, of a 1477 document from a citizen of Krems, Austria, according to which the prince "escaped death, although he was believed to be dead." Unexpectedly, Princesses Maria Carolina and Maria Chiara, daughters of Charles of Bourbon, Duke of Castro, and Princess Camilla Crociani, also visited the museum complex, confirming that the discoveries could open up a new tourist destination in the city that has seen record visitor numbers in recent years. For example, a sculpted bust of the prince has since been installed on site. Research will continue.
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