Cantacuzino family - Wallachian Parvu branch

***This branch descends from Table-Servant Parvu, second of the name and title and older brother of Great Ban Matei. Noteworthy are his two great-grandsons, brothers Grigore and Constantin.

***Grand Palatine Grigore Cantacuzino married Luxita Kretzulescu and had three daughters ( Zoe, wife of Gheorghe M. Ghica, Countess Marie de Castillon and Smaranda, wife of Prince Dimitrie Moruzi ) and a son. This son was Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino ( 1833-1913; see picture ), famous for being the wealthiest Romanian of his age, especially because he had oil-rich estates, the industrial exploitation of which began during his lifetime. Among his properties: the Floresti ( Prahova ) estate with the replica of the Trianon which he began ( and didn't finish ) as a gift for his granddaughter Alice ( see picture ); the Zamora Manor in Busteni; the estates at Filipesti and Jilavele; the Cantacuzino Palace ( see picture ), built in Bucharest on Victory Road in 1901-1903, designed by the architect Ion D. Berindey in the Louis XIV style; the impressive family vault in the Bellu Cemetery. Gheorghe Grigore Cantacuzino ( known as 'the Nabab' for his impressive wealth, 'Nabab' being an administrative title of the Middle East and Persia ) was Mayor of Bucharest ( 1869-1870 ), Justice Minister ( 1870 ), Minister of Agriculture, Trade and Public Works ( 1870; 1873-1875 ), Finance Minister ( 1875-1876 ), President of the Chamber of Deputies ( 1889-1891; 1900-1901 ), President of the Senate ( 1892-1895; 1911-1913 ), President of the Council of Ministers ( 1899-1900; 1904-1907 ), President of the Conservative Party ( 1899-1907 ). The fountain that was built during his time as mayor in what was to become the Carol I Park bears his name ( see picture ). He was married first to Princess Zoe Bibescu ( daughter of Gheorghe Bibescu, Lord of Wallachia 1842-1848 ), who died after only one year of marriage, and then to Ecaterina Baleanu, daughter of Nicolae Baleanu and of Irina Vacarescu. Ecaterina, who always had to live under the shadow of her husband's first wife, founded the Saint Catherine Orphanage, the most important one in Bucharest ( next to the Triumphal Arch, Ion I.C. Bratianu Square ) and gave birth to six children ( two daughters and four sons ):
******- Irina, who married first Radu Kretzulescu and then ( after a nasty divorce ) Nicolae Ghica, son of the famous Ion Ghica;
******- Alexandra, who married Barbu Catargiu, son of diplomat Alexandru C. Catargiu;
******- Mihail G. Cantacuzino ( 1867-1928 ) ( 'Misu' ), Conservative politician, Mayor of Bucharest ( 1904-1907 ) and Justice Minister ( 1910-1914; 1916-1918 ), Ephor of the Civil Hospitals; he married Maria Rosetti-Tescanu ( 1879-1968 ), the famous Maruca Canatcuzino, of broad culture and active presence on the high-class social scene; she was the lover of the great composer George Enescu ( see pictures of them and of their country house in Tescani; they also owned Cantacuzino Palace and lived in a second smaller residence in the palace's courtyard ), whom he married after her husband's death in a car accident. With Mihail she had two children:
*********- Alice, wife of Prince Mihai Sturdza;
*********- Constantin M. Cantacuzino ( 'Bazu'; 1905-1958 ), pioneer of Romanian aviation ( see picture ); between the two Wars he had become so famous that there was even a children's rhyme about him; his daughter is Ms. Maria-Ioana Cantacuzino, writer ( also known under the pen name of Oana Orlea );
******- Nicolae G. Cantacuzino, who married Georgette Ghika-Brigadier, daughter of diplomat Emil I. Ghika and had five children ( Stefan Cantacuzino married a Norwegian or Swede, Margareta Florescu, Senta Bossy, Andrei Cantacuzino who died during WWII and George-Henric Cantacuzino who committed suicide ); Margareta ( Marga or Magda ) married famous genealogist George D. Florescu and they lived in her father's house on General Budisteanu Street, formerly Manea the Baker Street.
******- Serban G. Cantacuzino, who married Ecaterina Sturdza-Miclauseni, daughter of George Sturdza-Miclauseni, and had no children; it seems he had a rare skin disease and committed suicide; they adopted their nephew, son of Serban's sister Irina, who bore the name Matei Ghica-Cantacuzino and married no less than five times;
******- Grigore G. Cantacuzino ( 'Griguta' ), Conservative politician, Mayor of Bucharest ( 1913 ) and Minister of Industry and Trade in the infamous Marghiloman cabinet ( 1918 ); as can be seen, he was in the pro-German branch of the Conservative Party, while his brother Mihail was in the pro-Entente one. He married Alexandrina Pallady ( 1881- 1944 ), more widely known as Didina Cantacuzino, an interesting character of her age, who managed to be both an orthodoxist-nationalist militant and a founding mother of Romanian feminism; they had three sons:
*********- Gheorghe G. Cantacuzino, archaeologist, who married Zoe Grecianu and was father of Mrs. Ileana Dugan and Ms. Ioana Cantacuzino;
*********- Alexandru G. Cantacuzino, Iron Guard militant, who in spite of his high connections was murdered by Police in September 1939, during the wave of killings that followed the assassination of Prime Minister Armand Calinescu; his daughter Smaranda married Radu Rosetti ( of the Raducanu branch, the general's grandson );
*********- Constantin G. Cantacuzino.

***Constantin Cantacuzino, brother of the Grand Palatine Grigore, was Grand Chamberlain and then Regent of Wallachia ( 1848-1849 ), installed by Turkey and Russia after the 1848 Revolution was crushed; he married Zoe Slatineanu and had four children:
******- Alexandrina, wife of General Gheorghe Manu.
******- Ioan C. Cantacuzino, Minister of Religious Faiths of Wallachia ( 1859; 1861 ), Justice Minister of Wallachia ( 1859; 1861 ) and of Romania ( 1866-1867 ), president of the Court of Cassation, he married Maria Mavros, daughter of General Nicolae Mavros and of Princess Sevastia Sutu and had the following children:
*********- Zoe, wife of Dimitrie A. Sturdza-Miclauseni ( D.A. Sturdza );
*********- Sevastia, wife of Petre P. Carp;
*********- Alina, wife of Ioan ( Jean ) Miclescu;
*********- Olga, wife of George Miclescu, brother of the previous;
*********- Elena Sturdza;
*********- Constanta Romalo;
*********- Maria, married to Prince Mihail C. Sutzu, pioneer of numismatics in Romania;
*********- dr. Ioan I. Cantacuzino ( 1863-1934 ), founder of the Romanian school of bacteriology and of the institute that bears his name ( see website with picture ); also member of the Romanian delegation at Versailles ( 1919 ) and minister without portfolio ( 1919-1920 ); he married Elena Bals, daughter of Alexandru Bals ( Brosteni branch ) and Ruxandra Sturdza-Miclauseni.
*********D.A. Sturdza and Petre P. Carp were both leaders of the Conservative and Liberal parties, respectively. The only place where they would speak to each other was the house of their mother-in-law ( on Lady's Street, on the corner with Victory Road ). Another residence of the family was the country house in Calinesti, Prahova county.
******- Grigore C. Cantacuzino ( 'Grigri' ), politician, General Director of the Theatres ( 1884 - 1898 ), Ephor of the Civil Hospitals; he married Elena, daughter of dr. Apostol Arsaki, politician and head of government under Alexandru Ioan Cuza; they had a daughter Alexandrina, while from her previous marriage to Dimitrie Manescu-Filitti, Elena had two daughters, the second of whom, also named Elena, is widely supposed to have been Cantacuzino's biological daughter. Alexandrina married first Prince Ferdinand Ghika ( son of Grigore V Alexandru Ghika, Lord of Moldavia 1849-1856 ) and then General Iacob ( Jacques ) Lahovary. Elena married Constantin Balaceanu-Stolnici. Grigore Cantacuzino's will left a lot of property to ( or even favoured ) Elena, although she wasn't officially his daughter; this was the cause of a rift between the two husbands ( Lahovary and Balaceanu-Stolnici ), ending in a duel ( no victim ). Among the properties left to Elena was Cantacuzino's own house in Bucharest ( Orlando Street, next to Victory Road ), designed by Johannes Schultz from Vienna, the architect that also designed Peles Castle itself. The house ( in fact only half of it ) is now owned by Elena's grandson, Mr. Constantin Balaceanu-Stolnici, a famous figure in Romania.
******- Adolf Cantacuzino, magistrate, father of Scarlat ( 'Charles-Adolphe', poet and diplomat, died in Communist prison; he lived in a house on Berthelot Street ) and Adolf A. Cantacuzino.