Ioan Manu

Ioan Manu studied at home and then at the Romanian school of Ion Heliade Rădulescu, Simeon Marcovici and others.

In his political activity, Manu climbed all the boyar ranks, eventually reaching the highest one, that of Great Vornic.

In 1858, after the Crimean War removed the country from Russian overseeing, he was, with Emanoil Băleanu and Ioan Al. Filipescu, one of the three Caimacams who administered Wallachia pending the election of a new prince by the ad hoc Divan.

In 1859, he supported the former prince Bibescu instead of Alexandru Ioan Cuza, and, during the latter's rule as Domnitor of the United Principalities, he retired from public life.

Manu returned only when Carol I replaced Cuza, being elected a member of the Parliament of Romania in the first electoral college (that of landowners), as a representative of Ilfov County.