Count Dracula wasn’t only a fictional character created by Bram Stoker. He was a real-life man named Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, or Vlad the Impaler.
And history shows he was just as dangerous. Vlad the Impaler, who was born in Transylvania, once invited hundreds of feuding nobles to a banquet. Then, he “had his guests stabbed and their still-twitching bodies impaled,” NBC News reported.
But now a new finding is shedding light on how Vlad himself might have died. The finding could “rewrite portions of European history,” according to the Greek Reporter.
The Greek site Prototheme reported on June 30 that a new “decipherment of an inscription on his supposed burial plate” seems to confirm the theory that Vlad’s relics are buried in “the monastic complex Santa Maria la Nova” in Naples, Italy – not in Romania.
Professor Giuseppe Reale said that “the mysterious inscription is a eulogy for the Vlad III of Wallachia,” Prototheme reported.
The findings were first reported by the Italian-language news site Il Mattino.
“It emerges that the mysterious inscription is an epitaph in praise of Vlad III of Wallachia, widely known as Count Dracula,” he told Il Mattino, according to Greek Reporter.
According to Prototheme, the theory that Count Dracula was buried in Naples, Italy, first emerged in 2014 from Italian and Estonian researchers.
For years, it was believed that Vlad was killed in battle. However, the new theory argues that, instead, he was “captured by the Ottomans and later freed by his daughter, Maria Balsa,” the Jerusalem Post reported.
She had been “adopted by a noble family in Naples to escape persecution,” and, when he died, it’s argued that she buried him “in the tomb of her father-in-law, Matteo Ferrillo, inside the Turbolo chapel,” the Post reported.
The inscription, described by the Post as “mysterious” dates to the 16th century and “seems to strengthen the theory that Count Dracula was buried in Naples,” reported the Post.
According to Greek Reporter, the tomb in Naples drew attention because of unusual decorations, namely “a carved dragon and symbols linked to ancient Egypt.”
Major Count Dracula Finding Rewrites History first appeared on Men’s Journal on Jul 6, 2025
