The Princely Academy of Bucharest was an institution of higher education, active from the end of the 17th century to the beginning of the 19th century.

History

The Academy was founded in 1694, at the initiative of the Prince Constantin Brâncoveanu

Constantin Brâncoveanu

Constantin Brâncoveanu was Prince of Wallachia between 1688 and 1714.-Ascension:A descendant of the Craioveşti boyar family and related to Matei Basarab, Brâncoveanu was born at the estate of Brâncoveni and raised in the house of his uncle, stolnic Constantin Cantacuzino...

. It underwent several reorganisations, under Gheorghe Ghica

Gheorghe Ghica

George Ghica March 3, 1600 – November 2, 1664), founder of the Ghica family, was Prince of Moldavia in 1658-1659 and Prince of Wallachia in 1659–1660....

, Constantine Mavrocordatos

Constantine Mavrocordatos

Constantine Mavrocordatos was a Greek noble who served as Prince of Wallachia and Prince of Moldavia at several intervals...

, Constantin Racoviţă

Constantin Racovita

Prince Constantin Racoviţă was twice monarch of Principality of Moldavia: 31 August 1749 – 3 July 1753 and 29 February 1756 – 14 March 1757; and also twice of Muntenia: July 1753 – c. 28 February 1756 and 9 March 1763 – 28 January/8 February 1764....

 and Alexandru Ipsilanti. The Academy’s language of study was Greek, the universal language of culture in the Eastern Orthodox world. For the most part, the teachers were also Greek. The students of the Academy came from all over the Orthodox world. In 1818 Gheorghe Lazăr

Gheorghe Lazar

Gheorghe Lazăr , born and died in Avrig, Sibiu County, was a Transylvanian-born Romanian scholar, the founder of the first Romanian language school - in Bucharest, 1818.-Biography:...

 began teaching courses in Romanian. In 1821, as a consequence of the increasing activity of the Greek patriotic organization, Filiki Eteria

Filiki Eteria

thumb|right|200px|The flag of the Filiki Eteria.Filiki Eteria or Society of Friends was a secret 19th century organization, whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule over Greece and to establish an independent Greek state. Society members were mainly young Phanariot Greeks from Russia and local...

, the Greek-speaking Academy was disestablished, and replaced with a similar institution where teaching was done in Romanian, the Saint Sava Academy.

Organisation and curriculum

We do not know very much about the Academy’s structure before the reforms of Ipsilanti. From 1776, however, by the decree of Ipsilanti, the studies in the Academy were organised in 5 cycles, each of them lasting 3 years. The first three-year cycle was dedicated to the study of the Greek and Latin grammar. The following was dedicated to the study of Greek, Latin, and classic literature. In the third cycle the students studied poetics, rhetoric, Aristotle’s ethics, Italian and French. In the fourth cycle the arithmetic and the geometry, as well as the history and the geometry were taught. Finally, the last cycle was dedicated to the study of philosophy and astronomy. If at the beginning the teaching was done mostly after the commentaries of Korydaleos to the works of Aristotle, later the courses took a modern orientation. The natural sciences, the philosophy, were taught after occidental handbooks, many of them translated in Greek.

Notable teachers

• Sevastos Kyminitis
  Sevastos Kyminitis
  Sevastos Kiminitis or Sebastos Kyminites was a Pontic Greek scholar who was born in a village close to Τrebizond, Pontus in 1630. He was principal of the Patriarchal Academy in Constantinople in the years 1671-1682. He left Constantinople in 1682 and moved to Τrebizond where he founded a Greek...
  
   (1630-1703)
• Grigorios Konstantas
  Grigorios Konstantas
  Grigorios Konstantas was a Greek scholar and figure of the modern Greek Enlightenment. He was actively involved in various educational issues as well as participated in the Greek War of Independence.-Life:...
  
   (1782 – 1787)
• Lambros Photiades (1792-1805)
• Konstantinos Vardalachos (1803-1815; 1820-1821)
• Neophytos Doukas
  Neophytos Doukas
  Neophytos Doukas was a Greek priest and scholar, author of a large number of books and translations from ancient Greek works, and one of the most important personalities of modern Greek Enlightenment during the Ottoman occupation of Greece...
  
   (1815-1818)
• Stephanos Commitas (1816-1818)
• Veniamin Lesvios (1818)
• Rigas Feraios
  Rigas Feraios
  Rigas Feraios or Rigas Velestinlis was a Greek writer and revolutionary of Aromanian origin, active in the Modern Greek Enlightenment, remembered as a Greek national hero, a victim of Balkan uprising against the Ottoman Empire and a forerunner of the Greek War of Independence.-Early...
  
   (1757-1798)
• Georgios Gennadios
  Georgios Gennadios
  Georgios Gennadios was a Greek man of letters who helped considerably in the foundation of some of the first educational establishments of modern Greece...
  
   (1784–1854)

Notable alumni

• Grigorie Brâncoveanu
• Dinicu Golescu
  Dinicu Golescu
  Dinicu Golescu , a member of the Golescu family of boyars, was a Wallachian Romanian man of letters, mostly noted for his travel writings and journalism....
  
  
• Iordache Golescu
• Ion Heliade Rădulescu
  Ion Heliade Radulescu
  Ion Heliade Rădulescu or Ion Heliade was a Wallachian-born Romanian academic, Romantic and Classicist poet, essayist, memoirist, short story writer, newspaper editor and politician...
  
  
• Daniel Philippidis
  Daniel Philippidis
  Daniel Philippidis was a Greek scholar, figure of the modern Greek Enlightenment and member of the patriotic organization Filiki Etaireia. He was one of the most active scholars of the Greek diaspora in the Danubian Principalities and Western Europe...
  
  
• Petrache Poenaru
  Petrache Poenaru
  Petrache Poenaru was a Romanian inventor of the Enlightenment era.Poenaru, who had studied in Paris and Vienna and, later, completed his specialized studies in England, was a mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, teacher and organizer of the educational system, as well as a politician,...
  
  
• Eufrosin Poteca
  Eufrosin Poteca
  Eufrosin Poteca was a Romanian philosopher, theologian, and translator, professor at the Saint Sava Academy of Bucharest. Later in life he campaigned against slavery...
  
  
• Barbu Ştirbei
• Alecu Văcărescu
  Alecu Vacarescu
  Alecu Văcărescu was a Romanian Wallachian boyar and poet, of the Văcărescu family that gave Romanian literature its first poets. His son, Iancu Văcărescu, was also a poet.-References:- See also:*Văcărescu family...
  
  
• Ienăchiţă Văcărescu
  Ienachita Vacarescu
  Ienăchiţă Văcărescu was a Wallachian Romanian poet, historian, philologist, and boyar belonging to the Văcărescu family...
  
  
• Nicolae Văcărescu

Sources

• Camariano-Cioran, Ariadna, Les Academies princières de Bucarest et de Jassy et leurs professeurs, Thessaloniki : Institute for Balkan Studies, 1974