# Brâncoveanu 1714: beheaded on his birthday (1688–1714) For 26 years he built Hurezi, Mogoșoaia and printing presses — then the Porte took his fortune and, on 15 August 1714, his 60th birthday, his head: his, his four sons' and his counsellor Ianache Văcărescu's. _By Marius Comper · 18 September 2026 · English edition_ ## The short answer Constantin Brâncoveanu reigned 26 years, from October 1688 to 15 August 1714: Hurezi, Mogoșoaia, presses and schools, a balance held against three empires. Then the Porte deposed him by firman, took him to Yedikule, tortured him to declare his fortune and, after seizing everything, beheaded him on his 60th birthday, with four sons and his counsellor Ianache Văcărescu. The fortune is the documented engine of the fall: from the Brâncoveni estate to the walls of the Porte, the map below ties each place to its step in 1714. And the game separates, story by story, what the archives say from what the legends say. ## The wealth map 10 documented places and 5 steps of the fall, from March to August 1714. Start the run or touch a place. - **24 March 1714** — The firman of deposition reaches Bucharest, through Mustafa-Aga. - **spring 1714** — The road to Constantinople: the prince and his own, locked in Yedikule. - **summer 1714** — Torture for the fortune: the Porte wants the treasure's hiding place. - **15 August 1714** — Before the seraglio: the four sons and Ianache Văcărescu, then the prince. - **after 15 August 1714** — The bodies, thrown into the Bosporus; Christian fishermen bury them at Halchi. The map is drawn from zero, not to scale: the places are documented, the positions indicative. This page shows no sum of money — because no source gives one. ## From Brâncoveni to the seraglio ### I. The rise (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. > On the same day the Wallachian boyars raised to the throne the deceased's sister's son, logothete Constantin Brâncoveanu. — The October 1688 election chronicle, as summed up by historians ### II. The foundations (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. > The first pisanie, dating from June 1692, stands in the upper part of the frame… — The great church pisanie of Hurezi, June 1692 ### III. The fall (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. > Yesterday, on the 24th of this month, one Mustafa-Aga, Hambar-Emini, came here with a firman and brought our deposition, with orders of such content, to take us to Tsarigrad with wife and children and sons-in-law… — Constantin Brâncoveanu, letter of 25 March 1714 ### IV. 15 August 1714 (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. > On the same day, at Constantinople, before the imperial seraglio, the head of Brâncoveanu was cut, and of […] — The Brâncovenesc Anonymus, the reign's chronicle ## The figures - **1654** — born at Brâncoveni, on 15 August - **1688** — takes the throne as the Bible is printed - **1697** — Hurezi finished, the style's masterpiece - **1702** — Mogoșoaia finished, between 1698 and this year - **1714** — the fall: the firman on 24 March, the scaffold on 15 August - **26** — years of reign, from October 1688 ## Treasure or archive? ### He reigned 26 years, from October 1688 to 15 August 1714. **document**. Documented: the reign's endpoints are October 1688 and 15 August 1714. “26 years” is the rounding historians use too. ### At Yedikule he was tortured to declare his fortune. **document**. Documented: the Ottomans tortured him to find the immense fortune he was believed to have amassed — so writes Del Chiaro. ### The Porte seized his entire fortune. **document**. Documented: after “all of his fortune had been seized”, the family's lives could only be ransomed by renouncing the faith. ### The famous scaffold words are the exact transcript of the execution. **legenda**. The schoolbook wording comes via Șincai, 1811, almost 100 years later, and circulates in variants. No contemporary transcript exists. ### He hid a treasure that was never found. **legenda**. No archive and no chronicle names a hiding place. The Porte tortured to learn it and seized what it found; the rest is story. ### He was the richest prince in Europe. **legenda**. No consulted source measures fortunes across a continent. Rich — yes, with estates, palaces and foundations; “richest” — a legend's word. ## Myths to burst ### “We have the transcript of the last words” **Apocryphal in detail**. The famous wording — “of our kind none have lost their faith” and the long speech — comes via Șincai, 1811, almost 100 years after the scaffold, and circulates in variants. The contemporary witness Del Chiaro describes the scene — the heads on poles, the city's unrest — not a transcript. ### “Brâncoveanu's hidden treasure” **Undocumented**. The Sultan believed it existed, which is why he ordered torture; the Porte seized all it found. But no archive and no chronicle names a hiding place — not at Hurezi, not at Mogoșoaia, not in the lake. The treasure with an address is legend. ### “Brâncoveanu's Bible” **A nuance to correct**. Half true: the Bucharest Bible, the first whole one in Romanian, was ordered by Șerban Cantacuzino, overseen by logothete Brâncoveanu, printed from November 1687 to September 1688, with the title page of 10 November 1688 — already under the new prince Constantin. ## Sources ### The reign and the fall - [EN Wikipedia — Constantin Brâncoveanu: the backbone of facts, citing Del Chiaro and Șincai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantin_Br%C3%A2ncoveanu) - [Britannica 1911 — Brancovan: the new-style date, 26 August 1714](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Brancovan) - [The Brâncoveanu martyr saints (PDF): the 25 March 1714 letter and the Anonymus fragment](https://archive.org/download/sf.-muc.-brancoveni/Sf.%20muc.%20Brancoveni.pdf) - [Ungureanu — prince and saint (CIMEC): the chronicles' bibliography](https://cimec.ro/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Ungureanu-Dragos_Constantin-Brancoveanu-principe-si-sfant.pdf) ### Foundations and books - [EN Wikipedia — Horezu Monastery: 1690, 1693–1697, UNESCO 1993](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horezu_Monastery) - [UNESCO, list 597 — Hurezi Monastery](https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/597/) - [Hurezi, a symbol of sacrifice (PDF): the two pisanii, June 1692](https://biblioteca-digitala.ro/reviste/ACTA_TERRAE_FOGARASIENSIS/03_ACTA_TERRAE_FOGARASIENSIS_III_2014_071.pdf) - [EN Wikipedia — Mogoșoaia Palace: 1698–1702](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mogo%C8%9Foaaia_Palace) - [EN Wikipedia — Bucharest Bible: 1688, Șerban's commission](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bucharest_Bible) - [BMIM — the Bucharest Bible (PDF): November 1687 – September 1688, the 10 November title](http://bmim.muzeulbucurestiului.ro/fisiere/17-Bucuresti-Materiale-de-Istorie-si-Muzeografie-XVII-2003_325.pdf) ### The wider world and the late words - [The Treaty of Karlowitz: 26 January 1699, ending the 1683–1699 war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Karlowitz) - [Britannica — the Carlowitz peace: the 1699 settlement](https://www.britannica.com/print/article/96076) - [The Russo-Turkish war of 1710–1713: the Prut frame](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Turkish_War_(1710%E2%80%931713)) - [Gheorghe Șincai: the 1811 chronicle through which the speech circulates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gheorghe_%C8%98incai)