Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431–1476), was a member of the House of Drăculești, a branch of the House of Basarab, also known by his patronymic name: Dracula. He was posthumously dubbed Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș), and was a three-time Voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462, the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. His father, Vlad II Dracul, was a member of the Order of the Dragon, which was founded to protect Christianity in Eastern Europe.
As the cognomen ‘The Impaler’ suggests, his practice of impaling his enemies is central to his historical reputation. During his lifetime, his reputation for excessive cruelty spread abroad, to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The total number of his victims is estimated in the tens of thousands. The name of the vampire Count Dracula in Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula was inspired by Vlad’s patronymic.
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Photo Gallery:
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- Vlad the Impaler as Aegeas, the Roman proconsul in Patras, crucifying Saint Andrew. Approximately 1470–1480, Belvedere Galleries, Vienna
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- Order of the Dragon Symbol
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- 1499 German woodcut showing Dracule waide dining among the impaled corpses of his victims
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- Vlad the Impaler and the Turkish Envoys. Painting by Theodor Aman
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- The Ambras Castle portrait of Vlad III, c. 1560
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- Vlad the Impaler as Pontius Pilate judging Jesus Christ. National Gallery, Ljubljana, 1463
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- A woodcut depicting Vlad Țepeș published in Nuremberg in 1488 on the title page of the pamphlet Die geschicht dracole waide
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- Transylvanian Saxon engraving from 1462 depicting Vlad Țepeș
