Alexandru Sihleanu

Born in Bucharest to paharnic (royal cup-bearer) Zamfirache Sihleanu, he spent his childhood at the Sihlele estate.

He began school at Saint Sava Academy, followed by Lycée Louis-le-Grand from 1852, and took up but abandoned the study of law.

Sihleanu returned home in 1855, contributing to Concordia and writing verses, which he collected into his only book.

Titled Armonii intime and containing 24 poems, it was published two months before his death of, as Odobescu put it, "an extraordinary disease, unknown even to doctors, a sad phenomenon of nature".

His Romantic verses are of a Byronic cast; invoking the cosmic and the fantastic, they anticipate Mihai Eminescu's motifs.