Otranto is the principality whose contested inheritance drives the novel’s dynastic conflict. Though Manfred possesses and governs it, the territory’s history rests on rival claims: a disputed grant to Ricardo, descent from Alfonso, and a hidden marriage that makes Theodore the rightful heir. The crises within Manfred’s household become inseparable from the question of who may rule Otranto, and the conclusion turns political possession over to hereditary legitimacy.

The Principality and Its Contested Succession

Otranto is ruled by Manfred, Prince of Otranto, whose authority passes to him from his father, Don Manuel, and before that from his grandfather, Don Ricardo. Manfred presents this succession as an inherited right supported by possession and force. He argues that Alfonso, who died without children in the Holy Land, bequeathed his estates to Ricardo in recognition of his service. Manfred also invokes Ricardo’s piety and his foundation of a church and two convents, while insisting that his ancestors held the territory by their swords and by the favor of Saint Nicholas.

That account is challenged by Frederic, Marquis of Vicenza, who claims to be the nearest blood relative of Alfonso and therefore Otranto’s rightful ruler. His herald calls Manfred a usurper and demands that he surrender the principality as well as Isabella, Frederic’s daughter. The claim is not new: Frederic’s ancestors had styled themselves princes of Otranto after Alfonso’s death, but Manfred’s family had been too powerful for them to displace. The conflict is therefore between a long-established regime and a rival hereditary claim that Manfred recognizes as well founded even while trying to resist it.

Rule as Family Strategy

Manfred’s government of Otranto is bound up with his efforts to secure a male successor. He hastens the marriage of his sickly son Conrad to Isabella, whom her guardians have delivered into his custody, despite the young couple’s circumstances. His subjects interpret the haste as an attempt to forestall an ancient prophecy: Otranto’s castle and lordship will pass from the ruling family when its true owner becomes too large to inhabit the castle. The prophecy’s meaning is unclear, but the uncertainty does not diminish its influence on the people’s understanding of Manfred’s actions.

When Conrad dies, Manfred turns the succession crisis into a domestic one. He proposes to marry Isabella himself, declares that he has divorced Hippolita, and describes his need for sons as a matter on which his fate depends. His dynastic purpose later enters his negotiations with Frederic: Manfred suggests marrying Isabella to end the feud between their houses, arguing that a prince must act for his people rather than himself. In this way, a private marriage arrangement becomes a proposed instrument for consolidating rival claims to Otranto. His treatment of political authority as a household possession is equally apparent when he orders the castle’s entrances guarded and forbids his servants to let anyone leave.

Competing Accounts of Legitimacy

Before Frederic’s arrival, Manfred attempts to justify his title to the visiting knights by appealing to inheritance from Don Ricardo and to Alfonso’s supposed bequest. He presents long possession as an additional basis for his family’s rule and is prepared to defend his title by combat. Yet he also acknowledges the force of Frederic’s claim and tries to manage the threat through negotiation, hospitality, and a proposed marriage. His explanations reveal a tension between the authority he exercises and the uncertain evidence on which he says it rests.

At the climax, Manfred gives a different account of the dynasty’s origins. He confesses that Alfonso died by poison and that the will naming Ricardo as heir was fictitious. Ricardo, Alfonso’s chamberlain, had therefore acquired Otranto through fraud rather than a legitimate bequest. Haunted by guilt, Ricardo vowed to found a church and two convents if he reached Otranto safely; Saint Nicholas appeared to him in a dream and promised his descendants rule until the rightful owner grew too large to inhabit the castle, so long as male descendants of Ricardo remained. Manfred’s confession turns the prophecy from a puzzling warning into the condition attached to a compromised succession.

The rightful line is established through another concealed history. Jerome explains that Alfonso, driven by a storm to Sicily while sailing for the Holy Land, married Victoria and left her pregnant before continuing on his journey. After Alfonso was reported dead and Ricardo succeeded him, Victoria’s daughter eventually married Jerome. That daughter became Theodore’s mother. The revelation supplies the blood relationship that Manfred did not know: Theodore descends from Alfonso and is recognized as Otranto’s true prince. The principality’s final transfer rests not on Manfred’s explanation of Ricardo’s inheritance, but on the recovered line of Alfonso and the supernatural judgment that confirms it.

Abdication and the Meaning of the Transfer

After the judgment against his family and the disclosure of the history behind Ricardo’s rule, Manfred accepts that Otranto belongs to Theodore. He resigns the principality, and Hippolita joins him in taking religious vows in neighboring convents. Frederic offers Isabella in marriage to the new prince, but Theodore, still grieving Matilda, cannot immediately accept another love. Only after repeated conversations with Isabella about Matilda does he agree to a future with her, finding that he can share his sorrow in her company.

The ending distinguishes possession from right. Manfred’s line has governed Otranto through inherited power, political force, and a false account of Alfonso’s will, but those instruments cannot survive the disclosure of the original crime and the return of Alfonso’s descendant. The prophecy’s fulfillment makes the castle and principality more than a prize in a dispute between powerful families: Otranto becomes the visible measure of a legitimacy that the reigning family could neither manufacture through marriage nor preserve through long occupation.