Neagoe Basarab was Voivode (Prince) of Wallachia from 1512 until his death in 1521, a member of the boyar house of the Craiovești. His reign is remembered as a period of relative peace and prosperity in the Romanian lands at a time when the Orthodox Church across the Balkans labored under Ottoman rule. He is venerated in the Romanian Orthodox Church as a right-believing ruler, and is commemorated on September 26.
He is best known as the builder of the monastery church at Curtea de Argeș, completed in 1517, which became his burial place and one of the great monuments of Wallachian church architecture. Beyond his own foundations, he was a generous patron of Orthodox institutions far beyond his borders, sending gifts and endowments to monasteries throughout the Balkans and to the major centers of Orthodox monasticism, including Mount Athos.
Neagoe is also remembered as a writer. He composed The Teachings of Neagoe Basarab to His Son Theodosie, a book of counsels in Church Slavonic addressed to his son and successor, ranging across questions of rule, morality, diplomacy, and the Christian life. The work is regarded as one of the significant literary monuments of medieval Romanian culture.
Born around 1459, he reposed in 1521 and was buried at Curtea de Argeș. The Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church formally numbered him among the saints in 2008.
