In Search of Isabella di Morra with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato

In Search of… with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato explores mysteries where history and legend blur and conjecture begins—along with the strange, the macabre, and the uncanny. What follows suggests possible explanations—though not the only ones.

Isabella di Morra: The Poetess in the Tower

High above the Sinni Valley, on a rocky spur in Basilicata, stands the castle of Valsinni, its walls thick, its windows narrow, its towers looking outward across a landscape both beautiful and isolating. In the sixteenth century, the fortress was home to Isabella di Morra.

Born into a noble family around 1520, Isabella spent much of her life confined within those stone walls. Her father, a baron allied with the French during the turbulent wars between France and Spain, fled into exile. The castle fell under the authority of her brothers, men said to be stern and suspicious. From within her enforced seclusion, Isabella wrote poetry: verses of isolation, longing, resentment, and a profound sense of imprisonment.

Alleged portrait of Isabella di Morra

She wrote of the “horrid valley” that enclosed her and of a fate she could not escape. In a world of arranged marriages and rigid honor codes, her voice was strikingly personal and dangerous.

At some point in the 1540s, Isabella began corresponding with a Spanish nobleman, Diego Sandoval de Castro, a married poet and official. Whether the exchange was romantic or literary remains debated. What is certain is that her brothers discovered it and killed her in the name of family honor. Sandoval was later ambushed and slain. The castle became the scene of blood, and Isabella’s brief life ended within the same walls that had confined her youth.

Centuries later, scholars rediscovered her work, recognizing in it one of the most original female voices of the Italian Renaissance.

Yet in Valsinni, another tradition endured. It is said that Isabella never left. On certain evenings, when the valley falls silent, a solitary figure appears along the battlements, gazing toward the horizon she once cursed.

Visitors to the castle speak of a presence in the tower rooms. Of sudden drafts in enclosed chambers and footsteps echoing where no one walks. Some claim to hear faint recitations rising from the stone, and lines of lament carried on the wind.

Was Isabella di Morra merely a tragic poet silenced by the violence of her age?

Or does the weight of injustice linger in the stones of Valsinni Castle?

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Sebastiano III, Conte di Sciancato, a minor prince of forgotten Lucania, was said to have loved his wife more than his soul. When his beloved bride, Donna Lucrezia di Nerafiora, died in a tragic accident, he could not accept the will of fate. In his grief, he turned to ancient books and desperate learning, searching for a way to restore her to the world of the living. The attempt cost him his life. The ruins of his torre lie hidden, and when the earth trembles, some whisper he still searches for her.

In Search of Circe and Scylla with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato

In Search of… with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato explores mysteries where history and legend blur and conjecture begins—along with the strange, the macabre, and the uncanny. What follows suggests possible explanations—though not the only ones.

Circe, Glaucus, and Scylla: The Curse of the Strait

Long before maps charted every current of the Mediterranean, sailors feared the narrow strait between Calabria and Sicily. There, they believed, an ancient curse haunted the waters.

According to legend, Scylla was not born a monster. She was a beautiful sea nymph, admired for her ethereal grace and sought after by many suitors. Among those who loved her was Glaucus, a Boeotian fisherman transformed into a prophetic sea god after tasting a mysterious herb.

Circe Invidiosa, 1892,
John William Waterhouse

Scylla did not return Glaucus’ affection, and in his despair he sought the aid of the enchantress Circe, whose island was said to lie somewhere in the western seas. Renowned for her mastery of potions, enchantments, and forbidden arts, Circe possessed the power to reshape the human form.

But the sorceress herself fell in love with Glaucus.

When Glaucus rejected her advances, refusing to abandon his devotion to Scylla, jealousy overcame reason. Circe poured an enchanted draught into the pool where Scylla bathed.

As the nymph entered the water, her body began to change. From her waist sprang the heads of ravenous dogs, snarling and snapping without end. The maiden disappeared, and in her place stood a terrifying creature driven by endless hunger.

Ovid recounts the transformation in his Metamorphoses, preserving one of antiquity’s most haunting tales of love, envy, and revenge.

Later tradition placed Scylla upon the rocky shores of Calabria overlooking the Strait of Messina, forever facing Charybdis, the monstrous whirlpool that churned off the opposite coast. Between them, ships were forced to choose the lesser danger.

For ages, seafarers navigating the strait saw not merely dangerous waters, but the lingering shadow of an old tale.

The natural hazards of the Strait of Messina almost certainly helped give rise to the myth. Its unpredictable currents and treacherous waters inspired the enduring expression “between Scylla and Charybdis.” Like the modern phrase “between a rock and a hard place,” it came to describe any situation in which every choice carries peril.

Was Scylla merely a poetic explanation for the violent waters that threatened ancient mariners? Or did the Greeks preserve through myth the memory of a place where the natural world seemed to yield to enchantment?

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Sebastiano III, Conte di Sciancato, a minor prince of forgotten Lucania, was said to have loved his young bride, Donna Lucrezia di Nerafiora, beyond reason. Unable to accept her death, he turned to forbidden books and desperate learning, seeking to restore her to the world of the living. The attempt cost him his life. The ruins of his torre lie hidden, and when the earth trembles, some whisper he still searches for her.

In Search of Leucàsia with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato

In Search of… with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato explores mysteries where history and legend blur and conjecture begins—along with the strange, the macabre, and the uncanny. What follows suggests possible explanations—though not the only ones.

Leucàsia: The White Siren of the Southern Sea

At the southernmost tip of Apulia, where the Ionian and Adriatic seas meet amid striking white cliffs, sailors have long spoken of a beautiful maiden whose song could sway both hearts and storms.

They called her Leucàsia.

According to legend, Leucàsia was a siren whose beauty rivaled her voice. She fell in love with a young shepherd named Melisso, but his heart belonged to another maiden, Aristula. Enraged by his rejection, Leucàsia unleashed furious winds and crashing waves upon the lovers as they embraced along the shore.

The Siren by John William Waterhouse

Choosing death over separation, they clung to one another as the storm-tossed sea engulfed them.

Moved by their tragic devotion, the goddess Minerva transformed the lovers into two rocky headlands, forever facing one another across the bay. Wracked with guilt, Leucàsia turned to stone and was said to have given her name to Leuca, now the town of Santa Maria di Leuca. Today, those headlands are known as Punta Ristola and Punta Meliso.

Some scholars see in Leucàsia another expression of the ancient siren traditions that once echoed throughout Magna Graecia. Others believe the legend arose later, shaped by the dramatic landscape itself as a poetic explanation for the lonely rocks and restless waters where two seas converge.

For generations, fishermen claimed that the wind sometimes carried a woman’s voice across the cliffs at dusk. Others insisted that pale shapes could be seen upon the rocks before storms rolled in from the horizon.

Whether born of imagination, echoing waves, or shifting light upon white limestone, the legend became part of the landscape itself.

Was Leucàsia merely a local legend woven around the rugged coast of Southern Italy?

Or did the ancient Greeks preserve, through myth, the memory of a place where the sea itself seems to sing?

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Sebastiano III, Conte di Sciancato, a minor prince of forgotten Lucania, was said to have loved his young bride, Donna Lucrezia di Nerafiora, beyond reason. Unable to accept her death, he turned to forbidden books and desperate learning, seeking to restore her to the world of the living. The attempt cost him his life. The ruins of his torre lie hidden, and when the earth trembles, some whisper he still searches for her.

In Search of the Devil’s Bridge with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato

In Search of… with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato explores mysteries where history and legend blur and conjecture begins—along with the strange, the macabre, and the uncanny. What follows suggests possible explanations—though not the only ones.

The Medieval Aqueduct of Salerno: The Devil’s Bridge

In the historic center of Salerno, rising unexpectedly between narrow streets and weathered facades, stand a series of dark stone arches.

They call it the Devil’s Bridge.

Constructed in the ninth century, the aqueduct once carried water to the Monastery of San Benedetto. Built during the Lombard period, its pointed arches cut sharply against the southern sky, a geometry at once practical and severe. For centuries it served the city quietly.

Local legend insists the aqueduct was not built by human hands alone. It was said that a Salernitan magician—sometimes identified with Pietro Barliario, a shadowy figure associated with forbidden knowledge—made a pact with darker forces to complete the arches in a single night. Others claimed the Devil himself assisted in its construction, leaving behind the structure as proof of his labor.

The name endured: Ponte del Diavolo.

19th-century engraving of the Medieval Aqueduct of Salerno,
known as Ponte del Diavolo ("Devil's Bridge").

In later medieval and early modern folklore, such remarkable feats of engineering often attracted supernatural explanation. Towering bridges and aqueducts—seemingly defying gravity—were natural candidates for diabolical attribution. Across Europe, similar structures bear the same name.

During the Middle Ages, the city was renowned for its medical school, the Schola Medica Salernitana, where Greek, Latin, Arab, and Jewish knowledge converged. It was a place where science and superstition coexisted uneasily. Where healing and alchemy, theology and experiment stood in tense proximity.

To some, the arches were a triumph of Lombard ingenuity; to others, they marked a threshold—an intrusion of something not entirely benign.

At night, the structure takes on another character. The arches loom. The spaces between them darken. For generations, townspeople avoided passing beneath them after sunset. It was said witches gathered there, spirits lingered in the shadows, and something watched from the empty span.

Was the Devil’s Bridge merely a marvel of early medieval engineering?

Or did the imagination of a fearful age project its anxieties onto stone and mortar?

……………………………………

Sebastiano III, Conte di Sciancato, a minor prince of forgotten Lucania, was said to have loved his wife more than his soul. When his beloved bride, Donna Lucrezia di Nerafiora, died in a tragic accident, he could not accept the will of fate. In his grief, he turned to ancient books and desperate learning, searching for a way to restore her to the world of the living. The attempt cost him his life. The ruins of his torre lie hidden, and when the earth trembles, some whisper he still searches for her.

In Search of Dracula in Naples with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato

In Search of… with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato explores mysteries where history and legend blur and conjecture begins—along with the strange, the macabre, and the uncanny. What follows suggests possible explanations—though not the only ones.

Dracula in Naples: The Prince Who Crossed the Sea

In the sun-soaked streets of Naples, where saints and sinners share the same chapels, a stranger is said to have come to rest.

Vlad III of Wallachia

Not a saint, but a prince the world would one day call Dracula.

His name was Vlad III of Wallachia—Vlad Țepeș, the Impaler—a 15th-century voivod whose reputation for ferocity traveled faster than his armies. In life he fought the Ottoman Empire and carved his authority into a fractured frontier world. In death, his legend grew fangs.

Bram Stoker never set his Count in Naples, though he himself once lived there. Yet rumor insists that Vlad’s bloodline reached the Kingdom of Naples through marriage and exile. One of his daughters—Maria, according to local tradition—was said to have wed into Neapolitan nobility and carried with her relics of her father’s life: documents, portraits, perhaps even his remains.

In 2014, renewed attention fell upon a tomb in the cloister of Santa Maria la Nova. Its carved symbols—dragons, sphinxes, obscure heraldry—seemed to some observers to whisper of distant Transylvania. A dragon, after all, was the emblem of the Order of the Dragon, from which Vlad derived the name Drăculea—“son of the Dragon.”

Was it coincidence, romantic imagination, or the faint echo of a Balkan prince whose bones traveled farther than history records?

Most historians maintain that Vlad was buried in Romania, perhaps at Snagov Monastery, though even that grave remains uncertain. His body, like his reputation, resists confinement.

Detail of a marble tombstone depicting a knight's helmet surmounted
by a dragon's head in the small cloister of Santa Maria la Nova, Naples.
Courtesy of visitnaples.eu

Yet Naples is a city that specializes in layered truths. Greek foundations lie beneath Roman streets; ossuaries and catacombs run beneath Baroque churches. If a restless prince were to seek a second resting place, this would not be an impossible city.

No definitive inscription names him. No verified remains confirm the tale. And yet the carved beasts on that Neapolitan tomb—too suggestive to be entirely dismissed—continue to provoke speculation.

Did Vlad the Impaler make the journey in death? Or did Naples, with its love of relics and legends, simply adopt a foreign darkness and make it its own?

In the stillness of the cloister, where sunlight falls through arches onto worn stone, one can almost imagine a prince far from his native Carpathians—exiled even in death, suspended between history and myth.

Is Dracula merely a Transylvanian specter?

Or does a fragment of him lie still beneath Neapolitan sky, his legend drifting like sea mist through a southern city that has always understood how to live with ghosts?

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Sebastiano III, Conte di Sciancato, a minor prince of forgotten Lucania, was said to have loved his wife more than his soul. When his beloved bride, Donna Lucrezia di Nerafiora, died in a tragic accident, he could not accept the will of fate. In his grief, he turned to ancient books and desperate learning, searching for a way to restore her to the world of the living. The attempt cost him his life. The ruins of his torre lie hidden, and when the earth trembles, some whisper he still searches for her.

In Search of Alaric I with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato

In Search of… with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato explores mysteries where history and legend blur and conjecture begins—along with the strange, the macabre, and the uncanny. What follows suggests possible explanations—though not the only ones.

Alaric I: The King Beneath the River

In the fading years of empire, when marble cracked and legions thinned, a foreign king rode through the gates of the Eternal City.

Sack of Rome by the Visigoths
by Joseph-Noel Sylvestre (1890)

His name was Alaric.

In 410 AD, his Visigothic warriors entered Rome—not as traders or mercenaries, but as conquerors. For three days they looted palaces, stripped gilded statues, and carried away treasures that had glittered since the age of Augustus. Rome had been sacked before in distant antiquity, but not in living memory, and to many it felt like the beginning of the end.

Alaric did not linger to build a throne among the ruins. He marched south, perhaps dreaming of Sicily and Africa’s grain fields. Instead, he died—some say of fever, others of exhaustion, and a few of divine judgment.

What followed is stranger still.

Near the city of Cosenza, by the banks of the Busento River, his warriors are said to have performed an extraordinary feat. They diverted the river from its course and, in the dry riverbed, dug a tomb for their king, laying him to rest with the spoils of Rome—gold, silver, sacred vessels, perhaps even relics taken from ancient temples. Then the waters were returned to their path.

And the captives—so the Gothic chronicler Jordanes records in his Origins and Deeds of the Goths (Getica)—were slain, so that none could betray the secret.

The Burial of Alaric in the Bed of the Busento River, 1895
The Cyclopedia of Universal History by John Clark Ridpath

A king buried beneath flowing water—his tomb sealed not by stone but by current.

Is it merely legend—a poetic flourish from the twilight of empire? Or does Alaric still lie beneath the shifting bed of the Busento, his treasure undisturbed, the river running over his grave for sixteen centuries?

Archaeologists have searched. Treasure hunters have speculated. Modern surveys have mapped the terrain. No tomb has been found; no golden hoard has been drawn from the mud. Yet rivers move, earth shifts, and secrets do not always remain obedient to time.

When the Busento floods and the waters run dark after heavy rain, some in Calabria still recall the old tale—the conqueror of Rome, hidden where no empire can reach him.

Is Alaric’s watery grave only a story born from Rome’s long decline?

Or does he remain there still, enthroned in silence beneath the restless river?

……………………………………

Sebastiano III, Conte di Sciancato, a minor prince of forgotten Lucania, was said to have loved his wife more than his soul. When his beloved bride, Donna Lucrezia di Nerafiora, died in a tragic accident, he could not accept the will of fate. In his grief, he turned to ancient books and desperate learning, searching for a way to restore her to the world of the living. The attempt cost him his life. The ruins of his torre lie hidden, and when the earth trembles, some whisper he still searches for her.

In Search of the Villa of the Mysteries with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato

In Search of… with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato explores mysteries where history and legend blur and conjecture begins—along with the strange, the macabre, and the uncanny. What follows suggests possible explanations—though not the only ones.

The Villa of the Mysteries: Initiation in Pompeian Red

On the outskirts of ancient Pompeii, beyond the city walls and overlooking the Bay of Naples, stands a Roman house unlike any other.

They call it the Villa of the Mysteries.

Buried beneath volcanic ash in 79 A.D., it lay hidden for almost eighteen centuries. When excavated in the early twentieth century, archaeologists uncovered a chamber whose walls were painted a deep, consuming red. Life-sized figures moved across the plaster in solemn procession: women, satyrs, maenads, and a veiled initiate at the center of it all.

What was this room?

The fresco cycle, dating to the first century B.C., appears to depict a ritual—possibly an initiation into the cult of Dionysus. A bride prepares. A child reads from a scroll. A winged figure raises a scourge. A woman recoils, half-veiled, in what may be fear… or ecstasy.
 

The scenes are theatrical, almost operatic. Yet they are frozen in silence.

Fresco cycle from the Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii (1st century B.C.).
The life-sized figures are widely interpreted as depicting a Dionysian
initiation rite, though their precise meaning remains debated.

For decades, scholars have debated their meaning. Some argue the paintings illustrate a young woman’s passage into marriage, cloaked in Dionysian symbolism. Others insist they portray initiation into mystery rites—secret ceremonies reserved for the chosen.

The Romans called them mysteria—things revealed only to initiates.

Dionysus, god of wine, frenzy, and divine madness, presided over cults that blurred the line between order and chaos. His rites were said to loosen the bonds of reason through intoxication, music, and holy terror. To confront Dionysus was to confront something wild, untamed, and perilously close to hidden knowledge.

In the Villa’s red chamber, the initiate stands between two worlds: innocence and awakening. The raised scourge may symbolize purification. The unveiled bride may signify passage into a new state. Or the entire sequence may represent something far more esoteric—an encounter with a god who did not arrive gently.

We do not know who commissioned the paintings. We do not know who stood in that room as bronze braziers flickered against those crimson walls. We do not know whether the rites performed there were symbolic… or real.

Then Vesuvius erupted, ash fell, roofs collapsed, and the city died. The chamber of initiation was sealed.

When it was rediscovered, the figures seemed almost alive, their eyes watchful, their gestures suspended in perpetual motion. Some visitors speak of an unusual stillness in the room, as though the ritual never ended—only paused.

Was the Villa of the Mysteries a bridal chamber adorned with mythic imagery?

Or was it a sanctuary of secret rites, preserved by catastrophe?

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Sebastiano III, Conte di Sciancato, a minor prince of forgotten Lucania, was said to have loved his wife more than his soul. When his beloved bride, Donna Lucrezia di Nerafiora, died in a tragic accident, he could not accept the will of fate. In his grief, he turned to ancient books and desperate learning, searching for a way to restore her to the world of the living. The attempt cost him his life. The ruins of his torre lie hidden, and when the earth trembles, some whisper he still searches for her.

In Search of Colapesce with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato

Today, we introduce a new semi-regular feature on Il Regno: In Search of… with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato. From time to time, the Count’s restless spirit will join us to delve into some of history’s stranger tales and forgotten oddities. ~ Ed.

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In Search of… with the Ghost of the Count of Sciancato explores mysteries where history and legend blur and conjecture begins—along with the strange, the macabre, and the uncanny. What follows suggests possible explanations—though not the only ones.

Colapesce: The Boy Beneath the Island

In the waters off Sicily and Naples, fishermen have long told of a boy who swam too well… and too deep.

They called him Colapesce—Nicholas the Fish.

Bas-relief of Colapesce (Niccolò
Pesce), Via Mezzocannone, Naples
Courtesy of storienapoli.it

Medieval chronicles from the 12th century speak of a youth who could remain beneath the sea for hours, exploring caverns no diver could chart. One account tells of a Sicilian boy summoned before a powerful ruler—often identified as Emperor Frederick II—who demanded proof of his remarkable talent.

Objects were cast into the depths. A goblet. A ring. Perhaps even a crown.

Each time, the boy returned.

But on the final descent, Colapesce discovered something far more unsettling. According to legend, Sicily did not rest securely upon the earth. It stood upon three immense pillars rising from the sea floor. One of them—cracked and crumbling—threatened the island’s stability.

He dove again.

And this time… he did not resurface.

Was it merely medieval imagination attempting to explain earthquakes and the fiery rumblings of Mount Etna? A symbolic tale born in a land shaped by tremors and tides?

Or could there have been a gifted diver—an extraordinary youth whose disappearance grew into myth?

No grave marks his passing. No record confirms his fate.

Yet in the Strait of Messina, where currents churn and the seabed drops away into darkness, sailors still speak of strange shapes moving far below.

Is Colapesce only legend?

Or does he remain there still—holding up an island, suspended between history and myth, beneath the restless sea?

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Sebastiano III, Conte di Sciancato, a minor prince of forgotten Lucania, was said to have loved his wife more than his soul. When his beloved bride, Donna Lucrezia di Nerafiora, died in a tragic accident, he could not accept the will of fate. In his grief, he turned to ancient books and desperate learning, searching for a way to restore her to the world of the living. The attempt cost him his life. The ruins of his torre lie hidden, and when the earth trembles, some whisper he still searches for her.