Dracula In 1983, McNally additionally suggested that Stoker was influenced by the history of Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who allegedly tortured and killed between 36 and 700 young women. It was later a commonly believed rumor that she committed these crimes to bathe in their blood, believing that this preserved her youth. Báthory's castle was also located in the Carpathian Mountains, just as Dracula's, albeit in a different region. In her book "The Essential Dracula", Clare Haword-Maden suggested that the castle of Count Dracula was inspired by Slains Castle, at which Bram Stoker was a guest of the 19th Earl of
The Trojan Women Set Fire to their Fleet (Claude Lorrain) The Trojan Women Set Fire to their Fleet (Claude Lorrain) The Trojan Women Set Fire to their Fleet is a mid-17th century painting by French artist Claude Lorrain. Done in oil on canvas, the painting is currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Claude Lorrain painted "The Trojan Women Set Fire to their Fleet" around 1643 at the behest of Cardinal Girolamo Farnese. The scene is Lorrain's take on a famed event in Book 5 of the "Aeneid" in which the exiled women of Troy, spurred on by the Hellenistic goddess Juno, burn the Trojan fleet to