Curtea Nouă

Located near the Mihai Vodă Monastery, on Dealul Spirii in Bucharest, it was built between 1775 and 1776 during the rule of Alexander Ypsilantis, and it meant to replace the old princely court at Curtea Veche.

Curtea Noua appears at the top of the Sulzer map (1781) It is isolated from the city of Bucharest, across the Dambovita river.

The Swiss chronicler Sulzer left a description of the building which suggests that he was not very impressed with it: "This palace is in all respects irregular and ill-proportioned, just like the boyars' residences, about which we mentioned that are built in octagonal and even twelve sides polygonal shapes, from well placed bricks, but due to the lack of wood, having the windows, doors and floors ill-fitted."

His opinion may have been colored by the fact that Transylvanian builders and architects were employed for its construction, who were forced to return without being paid.

Construction was begun with architects and laborers from Brasov, and was continued and completed with work force brought from the Balkans and locally sourced.

The court was not only the residence of the ruler (Domnului) but also the seat of the chancellaries: Inaltul Divan Domnesc, Logofetiile, and even the secret prison where disgraced boyars were held in arrest.

From a document dated 1804 (during the rule of Ypsilanti) we find that "near the gardens of the Dudescu residence [near the Court] there is a "baltac" [stale water] which is infecting the entire neighborhood.

In 1806 Madame Reinhard was received in audience at Court, and described the experience of having to walk through a yard with chickens and past stables before passing through the "Harem" and several darkened rooms to reach the princely chambers.

Nicolae Caragea is mentioned in a document dated May 1783 as taking temporary residence over the summer at the Cotroceni Monastery.

He starts a renovation project of the Court building, financed with a dedicated tax levied on merchants and boyars.

Mavrogheni leaves the capital and takes refuge south of Danube where he is assassinated by Turks, probably as punishment for having abandoned his post.

Firemen, covered with helmets and a kind of Roman clothing, were courageously climbing the roofs, and entered houses to remove furniture.