A mysterious inscription in the complex of Santa Maria La Nova rekindles the hypothesis that Vlad III, known as Dracula, is buried in Naples.
In the heart of the ancient center of Naples, among the silent cloisters of the monumental complex of Santa Maria La Nova, one of the most fascinating historical puzzles in Europe could be hidden: the burial of Prince Vlad III of Valacchia, known to most as Dracula. For years, scholars and historians of art have been speculated that the guise of the Impatulator, who lived between 1431 and 1477, have not remained in the carpathians, but have been moved to the Neapolitan city. A suggestive hypothesis that today finds new lymph thanks to the possible decryption of an enigmatic inscription, so far remained indeciphered, engraved on the alleged tomb of Vlad.
The discovery and the decipher writing
It was the director of the complex, Professor Giuseppe Reale, who revealed the first results of a research conducted by a group of international scholars, who dealt with the mysterious enrollment present in the Turbolo chapel. According to the first interpretations, it would be a funeral praise dedicated to Vlad III, a historical figure of the most controversial and mythy of the Balkan tradition. The text, dating back to the 16th century, would therefore be a decisive clue in favor of the Neapolitan hypothesis.
Who was Vlad III of Valacchia
Prince of Valacchia, a strategic territory between the Ottoman Empire and Hungary, Vlad III was a ruthless political and military figure, but also a symbol of resistance against the Turkish advance in the Balkans. His nickname, “the implair”, derives from the brutal method with which the enemies justice: imposing them. However, his cruelty was not dissimilar from that of other sovereigns of the time, and was often emphasized by his opponents. Born in 1431 in the Transylvanian town of Sighiyondara, Vlad was the son of Vlad II Dracul, a member of the order of the dragon: hence the patronymic “Dracula”, which means “son of the dragon”.
The myth of Dracula and Bram Stoker
However, it was Bram Stoker’s novel, published in 1897, who transformed Vlad into a shadow creature. The “count Dracula” who lives in the foggy castles of Transylvania and feeds on human blood is a figure largely literary, but inspired by the true Vlad III. The myth has thrived over time, rooting itself in the collective imagination and becoming a universal symbol of the Gothic. Dracula’s charm has fed on local legends, but also of historical ambiguity such as the one that today emerges from Naples.
The Neapolitan hypothesis: between history and legend
The idea that Vlad was buried in Naples emerged in 2014, when a group of Italian scholars – supported by academics of the University of Tallinn – identified a tomb in the mirror chapel with unusual heraldic symbols: a dragon, referable to the order of the dragon, and Egyptian figures, potentially linked to the cult of the afterlife. According to this theory, Vlad would not have died in battle, but captured by the Turks and subsequently freed thanks to the intervention of his daughter, Maria Balsa.
Maria Balsa and the tomb in Santa Maria La Nova
Adopted by a noble Neapolitan family, Maria Balsa would have taken refuge in Italy to escape persecutions and would have brought her father. Upon his death, Vlad would have been buried in the tomb of the father -in -law of Maria, Matteo Ferrillo, one of the most influential patrons of the Neapolitan Renaissance. Right here, in the chapel of the convent of Santa Maria La Nova, there is the enigmatic burial now at the center of attention.
A mystery still open
If the new analyzes confirmed the interpretation of the writing as a epitaph of Vlad III, the entire historical narrative linked to Prince Valacco and the myth of Dracula could take on completely unpublished outlines. A Balkan legend that arrives under the sky of Naples, in a city that for centuries for the sacred and profane weave, myth and history, in an endless story.
