Born in 1654 as the son of Papa Brancoveanu and Stanca Cantacuzino, the future voivode of Wallachia inherited the great wealth his grandfather, Preda Brancoveanu, had achieved. Seduced by the beauty of Mogosoaia Estate, stretched along the very border of the lake, Constantin Brancoveanu built at first a church with St. George’s patron, used afterwards as chapel for the princely court. The church was finished on September 20, 1688, according to the rotive carved in the stone porch, above the entrance door: “… erected and made to last by Costandin the Brancovan, vel logofat /great chief councillor/ [...], for he and his parents be remembered for ever and rest in peace, built in the days of H.M. Voivode Sarban Cantacuzino Basarab, a Christian ruling prince, on September 20th, in the 1688th year from world repentance.”
The brick church is nave shaped, its sidewalls, linked by transversal walls, are covered by cylindrical vaults and hemispheric calottes, the porch being supported by eight round brick columns. Inside, on the western wall of the narthex, two votive pictures still survive: on the right, Constantin Brancoveanu and his four sons (Constantin, Stefan, Radu, Matei), while on the left, Maria, his wife, and their seven daughters (Stanca, Maria, Ilinca, Safta, Ancuta, Balasa, Smaragda).
On the right side of the narthex there is the tomb of prince George Valentin Bibescu (d. 2 July 1941), the last owner of Mogosoaia Estate. In 1912, in concord with Martha, his wife, he repaired the church, endowed it with royal icons and cleaned the painting and iconostasis. Six decades later, in 1976, the restoration of the painting and narthex was resumed.
In October l688, one month after the church was consecrated, Constantin Brancoveanu became the ruling prince of Wallachia, following Serban Cantacuzino’s death. Next spring, in the boyar’s houses bought together with the estate, the voivode welcomed Ladislau Czaky, the envoy the Austrian emperor had sent to congratulate him for the dignity he had just been honoured. In summer, Brancoveanu used to summon there the Divan.
As the old houses could no longer satisfy the pomp a princely court required, Constantin Brancoveanu decided to build a residence worthy of his rank, a place where he could invite any foreign ambassador without feeling inferior. Though Wallachia had princely courts at Bucuresti and Targoviste, Brancoveanu created at Mogosoaia a parallel Court, concentrating there his and his suite’s life. Maybe he had been inspired by his contemporary, King Louis XIV, who, in the second half of the same century, had erected the unprecedented palace at Versailles, round which the whole political life of the French monarchy used to gravitate.
