He lectured with the latter at Voltaire Coffeehouse, appearing alongside some of the country's future statesmen and scholars: Nicolae Titulescu, Ion G. Duca, Dimitrie Drăghicescu, and Toma Dragu.

[2] The change was made official by his father in 1903, and later backed by a questionable family tree and heraldry, but recognized during his induction into the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George.

[9][10] Petrescu's views on his family's heritage were a frequent topic of ridicule among foreign diplomats (puns on his name included the French-language Petrescu-Quand même—"Petrescu-All the Same", and the generic "Nicolae Perhaps-Comnen").

[25] It was at this time that Comnen became the target of criticism from the far left—communist writer Panait Istrati, who also resided in Switzerland, alleged that Brătianu's delegates Vasile Lucaciu and Petrescu-Comnen were demagogues, preparing the annexation of Transylvania to the "satrap yoke" of the Romanian Kingdom.

According to Comnen's own account, he met with a deputation of Hungarian conservatives and liberals, including Count Andrássy, Alftred Windisch-Grätz and Mihály Károlyi, who demanded that Romania back their anti-communist government, based in Szeged, and provide support to the "White Guards".

Seeing this development as a bad omen, he wanted Romania to align herself with the anti-League Kingdom of Italy as a safeguard, personally befriending Benito Mussolini and Dino Grandi during ILO meetings.

[46] Titulescu and Comnen made a poor impression with British diplomats by producing blunt threats, such as announcing that Romania would individually sue all Hungarian colonists still present in the Banat.

[42] During much of 1928, he was also involved in the dispute between Romania and the Kingdom of Bulgaria, reporting to the League of Nations in respect to accusations that his government had encouraged Aromanian violence against Dobrujan Bulgarians, Turks, and Gagauz.

The commission, headed by Wang Jingqi, heard Comnen's counterclaim, namely that Bulgaria had sent in Komitadji to attack Aromanian settlers, but repeatedly insisted, and obtained, that Romania prosecute wrongdoers acting on her behalf.

[58] Comnen's stint in Vatican City was prompted by the government reshuffle ordered by Prime Minister Maniu, and disappointed Petrescu-Comnen: he was negotiating an economic treaty with Germany and, moreover, preferred the post of ambassador to Italy.

[60] He was responsible for obtaining from Pope Pius XI a quick recognition of Carol II as King of Romania, following the latter's coup, and for ending a long-standing dispute surrounding the corporate status of Romanian Roman Catholic churches.

[71] Later that year, he and consul Constantin Karadja obtained from Hermann Göring a guarantee that Germany would not go to war over Hungary—but this pledge was quickly dismissed by Konstantin von Neurath and Alfred Rosenberg.

[75] Though skeptical, Comnen himself preferred this Soviet realignment to the Nazi alternative: his notes of 1936 show him alarmed by the "antisemitic objective" of Nazism (accurately predicting a Kristallnacht), by the regime's public anti-Catholicism, and overall by the "nebulous criteria of German law".

In the run-up to the elections, Comnen had sought to mitigate Germany's open support for the Iron Guard, offering its government a chance to apologize for Ambassador Fabricius' presence at the funerals of Ion Moța and Vasile Marin.

Comnen confirmed to this standard, communicating in Berlin the guidelines of Romania's neutralist policy: preservation of Franco– and British–Romanian relations, full economic cooperation with Germany, and "no hostile attitude toward Russia.

[85] Soon after taking office, Comnen, who was more probably a neutralist,[86] presided upon the council of the Balkan Pact, and, in February 1938, drafted its Ankara resolution, condemning "any interference in the internal politics" of member states.

[106] In effect, with his revelations about the flak range, Comnen gave the Soviets a free pass—as noted by French diplomatic cables, he did not want terrestrial passage, but "close[d] his eyes to overflights of [Romania's] territory.

[110] As argued by journalist Alexander Bregman and historian Anna M. Cienciala, this exposes as false the claims publicized by Soviet historiography, according to which Romania sabotaged the Czechoslovak–Soviet entente.

He "took the initiative in liquidating the Ethiopian question",[114] then followed the Anglo–French attempt to restore relations with Italy: "the Italian conquest would have to be acknowledged, unless [League members] were prepared to live forever in an unreal world.

[116] Comnen hosted the Little Entente leaders at a summit in Sinaia, and agreed to negotiate a collective nonaggression pact with Hungary; he also empowered Ioannis Metaxas to approach Bulgaria for similar talks.

[122] The same month, he also approached Litvinov, promising that Romania would play no part in "anti-Soviet actions",[123] also renouncing the demand for territorial guarantees, and even proposing that the Red Army be allowed to cross into Carpathian Ruthenia by way of Cernăuți County.

[126] Confronted with Romania's argument that either Czechoslovak rule or an independent Carpatho-Ukraine were preferable to Hungarian irredentism, Beck became convinced that Comnen was a "perfect imbecile", describing him as such in his memoirs.

[128] For his part, Comnen continued to aggravate the Poles by stating his support for an independent Ukraine, which he argued would be a natural ally of Poland and Romania against both Germany and the Soviet Union.

In his own interview with Halifax, Comnen openly criticized France and Britain for abandoning Czechoslovakia; in that context, he also claimed that he himself had rejected an offer by "Slovakian political parties" to obtain a League of Nations mandate over that region.

In that context, Comnen had a publicized meeting with three former Ministers of Foreign Affairs (Dimitrie I. Ghika, Victor Antonescu, Istrate Micescu), showing that they backed his German rapprochement.

[90] Petrescu-Comnen took up his new office in Rome on January 20, 1939,[142] visiting Pacelli, now Pope Pius XII, at the Palace of Castel Gandolfo to present him with works of Romanian ethnography and assess his views on international politics.

[149] His office was unofficially taken over by Guardist Ioan Victor Vojen, who, upon his arrival, prevented Comnen from attending any official function; the aging diplomat withdrew to Fiesole, on a vineyard which had once belonged to Niccolò Machiavelli.

[159] Choosing to remain in exile to Italy after the Soviet occupation of Romania, Petrescu-Comnen spoke out against communization and lectured in particular against the Danubian Confederation project; nevertheless, he intervened to mitigate the effects of drought and famine in his native country.

[160] By 1947, he was also collecting and publishing in Florence his records of the war, and of his own part in it, as Preludi del grande dramma ("Preludes of the Great Tragedy"), followed in 1949 by the more detailed I Responsabili ("The Culprits"), at Mondadori.

[9] Communist censorship meant that Comnen's contribution was unmentioned in Romania until the 1970s, when his work was briefly covered, with some excerpts, detailing his anti-Nazism, appearing in Magazin Istoric in the early 1980s; his memory was primarily maintained by his peers in Italy.