chapter 1 Introduction* 1 Historical Background Dimitrie Cantemir was very young when he entered the Republic of Letters. Born on October 26, 1673, in Silișteni (nowadays “Dimitrie Cantemir”, in the Republic of Moldova), as the son of Constantin Cantemir (d. 1693), who was a military commander and later prince of Moldavia, Dimitrie enjoyed the privileges of a good education and scholarly companionship. At twenty-five, when his first book was published (the Divan, in 1698, at Iași), he had mastered the art of writing so thoroughly as to be able to compose a work on Christian ethics, two thirds of which were an original contribution, while the rest was an accurate translation of a Unitarian theologian’s book written in Latin.1 There is little information on the young years of the Moldavian Prince. The portrait attributed to Jean-Baptiste Vanmour that may represent him, as sug- gested by Nicolae Iorga,2 acknowledged for a long time as a certain likeness of the Prince during his first period in Constantinople, was convincingly removed from Cantemir’s iconography by George Ciorănescu3 (see ill. 1). The descrip- tion made by the Polish ambassador Rafael Leszczyński, who met Cantemir in Iași in 1699, is his only authentic portrait that has been preserved: “An eru- dite man, conversant in Latin, and with an excellent education – as if he had been raised in Poland.”4 In his conversation with the Polish ambassador Dim- itrie behaves with perfect courtesy, “showing that he was delighted to see his [the ambassador’s] person, since he had long heard of his great name.” He has “various discussions with the ambassador’s friends on the duties of friendship.” He offers them Oriental gifts – “satin fabric for a vest, a piece of fine cloth for a coat and a Turkish handkerchief” – but greets them “in the Polish fashion, with a bow.” He comments on the quality of the ambassador’s orchestra, because “he * By Virgil Cândea. 1 For the life, scholarly works and political career of the Moldavian prince see the entry on Cantemir, Dimitrie, by Ioana Feodorov, in ei-3, ed. by Kate Fleet, Gudrun Krämer, Denis Matringe, John Nawas and Everett Rowson, Brill, Leiden – Boston, 2012, pp. 47–56. (if) 2 N. Iorga, preface to D. Cantemir, Viața lui Constantin Vodă Cantemir, Bucharest, 1925, p. ix. 3 George Cioranesco, Le ‘Hospodar de Valachie’ du Musée de Rouen, in “Revue des études roumaines”, xv, Paris, 1975, pp. 85–96. 4 Raportul solului, in P. P. Panaitescu, Călători poloni în Țările Române, Bucharest, 1930, p. 115sq. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi: 10.1163/9789004311022_002 2 chapter 1 is somewhat knowledgeable in music.” He is always present when his brother, Antioch, the Prince of Moldavia, entertains guests at dinner or conducts nego- tiations during private audiences. At the time when he met Leszczyński, Cantemir relied not only on the authority given by his erudition and education, but also on the one granted to him by the recent printing of a book in a bilingual edition (Romanian and Greek), which had been well received in cultural circles: Divanul sau Gâlceava Înțeleptului cu Lumea sau Giudețul Sufletului cu Trupul (“The Divan or the Sage’s Dispute with the World or the Litigation between Soul and Body” – hereafter, the Divan). The previous two years had brought important progress in the personality, experience and reputation of the young scholar. As Moldavian kapükehaya in Constantinople (see ill. 4), he had taken part in 1697 in the disastrous expedi- tion of the Ottomans in Hungary, and witnessed their defeat by Eugene of Savoy at Zenta. In 1698 he had published his first book, mentioned above, in Iași, cap- ital of the Moldavian Principality. His marriage with Casandra Cantacuzino, daughter of Șerban Cantacuzino, Prince of Wallachia, which took place in the spring of 1699, allowed him to hope for a ruling position: among his ambitions he could therefore include that of the accession to the Wallachian throne. A diplomat, a scholar, a statesman, a pretender to the princely crown, and a man of the world – Cantemir’s person combined a diversity of qualities that were undeniably reflected in his works. For the first period of Cantemir’s life in Constantinople the available infor- mation is not sufficient to allow us to catch a glimpse either of his progress from adolescence to maturity or the transformation of the young Prince, exiled in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, into the open-minded scholar who appreciated the cultural values of worlds so vastly different: Byzantine-Ottoman Europe, Western Europe, the Persian and the Arab Orient. The testimonies of Roma- nian chroniclers, such as Nicolae Costin or Ion Neculce, concern the second part of his life at the Ottoman court after 1699, when, caught in the political fight for a kingdom, Dimitrie Cantemir was no longer an apprentice in mat- ters of either scholarship or statesmanship. It was a time when all his activities, such as the composition of his next book, Istoria ieroglifică (“The Hieroglyphic History”), or the permanent contact with foreign embassies and political cir- cles in the Ottoman capital, were seen as efforts which would lead him, in 1710, to the Moldavian throne. The mastery of Oriental languages was a key for accessing high Court ranks; however, training in Turkish and Arabic was a problem, because muftis were rarely conversant in European languages or, if they did speak them, they would be expensive to employ. Moreover, if you were a Romanian nobleman in Constantinople you were not encouraged to become.