2-913-733 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Monument at Croce di Petra, at Kalougaren, 1854. Memorial at Calugareni in modern Romania, '...which commemorates the victory of Prince Michael of Wallachia over Sultan Mahmoud in 1585. The Sultan sent an army of 180,000 men under the Grand Vizier Sinan Pacha, to reduce the Principality to its old obedience...Prince Michael attacked the Turks, who fled across the bridge, carrying with them...Sinan Pacha, who fell into the water, and was saved only by the courage of one of his followers... Several other Pachas, less fortunate than their chief, were captured by the Wallachs; and Prince Michael, surrounded by his Boyards, cut off, with his own hand, the head of the chief of them, Karaman Pacha...The monument [erected by Prince Michael] is now falling to ruin, typifying...the state to which the country has been reduced since the Wallachs lost the spirit of their ancestors'. From "Illustrated London News", 1854.