The blazon of the official coat of arms is as follows:  "Fine: the first gold of the foal cheerful black; in the second of the red-skinned hand coming out of the right, holding a dagger of silver manicata gold mail post, resting on an open book to the natural; the blue band, on the partition, loaded from three cornflowers gold. The turreted crown is of gold." A golden ribbon, under the shield of the list, bears the motto "I prepare to life and weapons". Gold and red are the colors of the city of Naples and the hoisted black horse also refers to it. The blue band with three lilies of gold refers to the Bourbons of Naples, founders of the School. The armed wing of dagger on the open book refers to the motto of the school. Heraldic motto is for any institution or military unit sign and figure of its identity, together with the coat of arms; the variations of the mottos of the Nunziatella also detect historical and cultural changes underwent in individual historical periods:   Next to the official, there are other two informal mottos, linked to two places in the school: the back wall of the Great Hall shows the motto "Being more than seeing", translation of the phrase "Esse quam videri" coming from chapter 98 of the De amicitia of Cicero; under the big clock in the school, located on the first floor landing, it is printed the motto "Il perder tempo a chi più sa più spiace" (Losing time is more regretted to whom more know), coming from the third canto of the Purgatorio of the "Divine Comedy" of Dante Alighieri. Even the five sections (two in classic high school and three in scientific high school) that build the order of studies to Nunziatella have their own official mottos:   The Academy is the only remaining military unit and only school to retain a traditional drum and bugle corps ("Batteria Tamburi") within the Italian Armed Forces. The official patron of the Military School Nunziatella is Our Lady of the Annunciation which is dedicated to the church from which the institute is named. However, in the 1960s added St. Crispin, namesake of the Jesuit monk whose ghost, according to legend, would haunt the basement of the school. The rituals associated with that internal myth are traced to a tragic event whose memory is still celebrated as part of the legacy of the institute: according to the legend, the night of St. Crispin a cadet died at the Nunziatella and in his memory the Patron saint of that day was adopted as patron of the students; the historical sources identify in the son of the general Giosué Ritucci, a cadet of the first year at Nunziatella, the unfortunate protagonist of this episode.