In Basilicata, this year, nothing is said but Matera, the European Capital of Culture 2019. But Lucania is not represented only by the (splendid) City of the Stones. Among the less well-known villages, but no less fascinating, we point out Acerenza. Perched atop a hill in the province of Potenza, Acerenza is capturing the attention of many scholars and fans of legends. Here, in fact, the Holy Grail would be hidden.
In these parts, in fact, it is said that the famous biblical chalice, lost in the dark centuries and become a mystery of universal proportions, would be behind a walled window of the Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta and San Canio Vescovo. In fact, the village of Acerenza is described by historians as a place of passage for the Crusaders, who stopped in the heart of Basilicata after their long journey in the Holy Land. Some claim that it was Ugo dei Pagani, founder of the Order of the Templars, who secured the sacred chalice: having been born a few kilometers from Acerenza, he was very familiar with the place and had no difficulty in identifying a a secret place that would have remained unknown to posterity.
Cathedral of Santa Maria Assunta and San Canio Vescovo
But the legends do not end there: the cathedral of Acerenza would guard another arcane, or the remains of the body of the daughter of Count Vlad III of Wallachia “the impaler”, better known as Dracula. Some symbols of the church, typical of Romanian architectural art, could in fact be traced back to the lineage of the terrible count. In short, if Matera is the capital of Culture, Acerenza is the capital of mysteries.
