Beheaded on his birthday

1654–1688

Brâncoveni 1654, the Cantacuzino household, the logothete's office and the 1688 Bible: a sister's son takes the throne in a single day.

Constantin Brâncoveanu is born on 15 August 1654, on the Brâncoveni estate, son of Papa Brâncoveanu and Stanca Cantacuzino. Left an orphan, he grows up in the house of his uncle, stolnic Constantin Cantacuzino, and inherits through his grandfather Preda a substantial part of Matei Basarab's fortune.

As grand logothete, he oversees the printing of the Bucharest Bible, ordered by Șerban Cantacuzino: printing starts in November 1687 and ends in September 1688, and the title page, of 10 November 1688, already names the new prince Constantin.

After Șerban's death the boyars raise him to the throne on the very same day, and the stolnic uncle — proclaimed prince, says Del Chiaro — refuses the throne and clears his nephew's road to the Porte's confirmation. 26 years of reign were beginning.

1690–1702

Hurezi 1690–1697, Mogoșoaia 1698–1702, the press and the Academy: 26 years show nowhere better than in stone and in books.

Hurezi begins in 1690 and is finished in 1697: the great church, dedicated to Saints Constantine and Helen, is the masterpiece of the style that bears his name — local tradition, Byzantium and the Italian Renaissance in the same wall. The first pisanie dates from June 1692, the consecration from 8 September 1693, the family's votive fresco from 1709.

Mogoșoaia rises between 1698 and 1702, 10 kilometres from Bucharest; Potlogi, Doicești, Râmnicu Sărat, Sâmbăta de Sus and the Old Court of Bucharest complete the row of foundations. All stand on the wealth map, each at its step.

Under the same reign works the Bucharest press, under Antim Ivireanul: books in Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian, Arabic, Turkish and Georgian. In 1694 the Princely Academy of Bucharest is founded. The four sons — Constantin, Ștefan, Radu, Matei — are born in 1683, 1685, 1690 and 1702; beside them, seven daughters.

1710–1714

Urlați, the returned gifts, the March firman: a 26-year balance breaks in a few weeks.

The Russo-Turkish war of 1710–1711 caught him in the middle: he contacted Peter the Great and accepted his gifts, but never crossed to his side. The army waited at Urlați, by the Moldavian border, then the gifts went back to the Russians and the prince remained, formally, the Porte's man.

It was not enough. Denounced to the Porte and worked from inside by the Cantacuzinos — the Brâncovenesc Anonymus shows them plotting his ruin — Brâncoveanu received the firman of deposition in Holy Week itself, through Mustafa-Aga. Cousin Ștefan Cantacuzino triumphantly took the throne.

The deposed prince's road led to Constantinople, to the prison of the Seven Towers, Yedikule. There, under torture, he declared his entire fortune, estates and all. The Porte was hunting the hidden treasure; what it found, it seized.

1714

The Dormition, 60 years, before the seraglio: six heads fall for an unrenounced faith.

On 15 August 1714, the Dormition of the Mother of God — an imperial feast, his 60th birthday and Lady Marica's name day — the deposed prince, the four sons and Ianache Văcărescu are brought before Sultan Ahmed III. The envoys of Austria, Russia, France and England watch too.

The fortune had already been seized; the family's lives could still be ransomed only by renouncing the faith. They refused. Constantin, Ștefan, Radu and Matei, then counsellor Ianache, were beheaded before the father's eyes.

Del Chiaro, the prince's Italian secretary, writes what followed: the heads carried on poles through the streets of Constantinople, the city's unrest, the bodies thrown into the Bosporus for fear of revolt and fished out by Christians, buried at Halchi Monastery. In June 1992 the Romanian Orthodox Church canonised all six; the feast is on 16 August, and the relics rest at New St. George in Bucharest.