A prominent representative of the liberal current, he was the younger brother and lifelong collaborator of Ion Ghica, who served as Prime Minister of the Romanian Kingdom in 1866-1867 and again in 1870-1871.

Pantazi Ghica began his political career as a participant in the Wallachian Revolution of 1848, a collaborator of the Romantic historian and activist Nicolae Bălcescu, and a member of the radical grouping headed by C. A. Rosetti.

Ghica's work and political convictions were criticized and often ridiculed by Junimist intellectuals such as Titu Maiorescu, Mihai Eminescu, and Ion Luca Caragiale.

Notably, this physical defect is mentioned for satirical effect in Eminescu's poem and in Caragiale's autobiographical work, Din carnetul unui vechi sufleur.

[7][8] Before the revolution toppled Prince Gheorghe Bibescu and created a new administration, Bălcescu sent Pantazi Ghica as an agitator, in service to the revolutionary organization Frăţia.

Their arrival coincided with the outbreak of the Crimean War: Pantazi Ghica joined the Ottoman Army, serving as a Yüzbaşı in the Cossack Corps (part of the Imperial Guard).

[15] It was here that he published a critical review of Ciocoii vechi și noi, a novel by his friend Nicolae Filimon, which upset the latter (as a consequence, relations between the two soured).

[12] At the time, Macedonski engaged in liberal politics, and, in 1876, co-founded the short-lived newspaper Stindardul, alongside Ghica, Bonifaciu Florescu, and George Fălcoianu.

In June 1876, shortly after the first concentrated National Liberal cabinet came to power, he and Nicolae Fleva spearheaded the effort to prosecute the former "White" Conservative ministers.

[27] In June 1881, promoting the designs of one Traian Theodorescu, Pantazi Ghica unsuccessfully presented Parliament with a proposal to have a submarine built for the Romanian Navy.

[7] In spring of 1882, shortly before his death, Ghica, like many of his fellow National Liberals, spoke out against I. Filibiliu, a teacher at the Matei Basarab High School who had administered a mild form of corporal punishment to one of his pupils.

[15] Literary critic Tudor Vianu noted that some of his works had a strong connection with Bohemianism,[30] while others are thought to be influenced by the Romantic author Dimitrie Bolintineanu.

[31] With time, however, Ghica moved away from Romanticism, and developed his own brand of Realism, which did not exclude imagination and speculation, and which hailed Alecsandri as a prime example of writing.

[21] He was also opposed to Macedonski's notion of "sublime absurdity", arguing that the definitive criterion for creating poetic imagery was significance, and proposing elements of didacticism to feature in every work.

[36] By the close of the 1860s, Pantazi Ghica was among the main targets of early criticism from Junimea—a literary society which expressed a conservative vision and was opposed to the cultural and political tenets of liberalism.

[37] Thus, Revista Contimporană contributors such as Ghica, V. A. Urechia, August Treboniu Laurian, and Gheorghe Sion are listed by Maiorescu as negative examples in Romanian literature, for their use of coined neologisms, as well as for their tautologies and contradictions.

"[38][39]Pantazi Ghica, Urechia, Dimitrie August Laurian and Petru Grădişteanu decided to issue a common reply to Maiorescu's accusations, using Românul as their venue.

[40] Although not a Junimist, Odobescu himself agreed with such views, and pointed out further inexactitudes in the works of Pantazi Ghica—these comments are featured in a chapter of his major book, the Pseudo-cynegetikos, in its revised edition of 1887.

[9][41] Odobescu recorded the polemic between Ghica and the contributors to Junimea's magazine Convorbiri Literare—the former stood accused of having embellished his own biography by claiming to have won the interest of French writers during his stay in Paris.

[9] Odobescu hinted that he agreed with this assessment, stressing that Alexandre Dumas and Alfred de Musset had since died, and thus could not confirm that Pantazi Ghica had befriended them.

[9] The latter argument referred to Ghica's statement that, in 1852, Dumas and de Musset had listened to his rendition of Vasile Alecsandri's poem Înşiră-te Mărgărite, which had in fact been completed in 1856, and first made available for the public four years later.

[30] Vianu's generation colleague George Călinescu defined Pantazi Ghica as "untalented" (although he acknowledged his "vast literary culture"),[21] while Ştefan Cazimir likened his writings for the stage to what he believed was Ion Luca Caragiale's worst play, the melodrama O soacră.

See down there the soulless, thoughtless fright, With his eyebrow-covered sight and his jaws all swollen and bloated, Black-faced, hunchbacked and greedy, the source of ruses, To his comrades he recounts his venomous trifles; All of them having virtue on their lips, and within them forged currency, A quintessence of filth from tip to toe.

[45] He commented that the scandal was largely owed to the victim's father having made use of his political connections with the Ion Brătianu cabinet, and protested when the teacher assigned a provincial post as a punitive measure.

[7] The dramatist Ion Luca Caragiale, who wrote many of his works under the influence of Junimist principles, developed his own thesis on the political shortcomings of the liberal trend.

[21] A rumor which probably made it into Eminescu's poetry had it that Pantazi Ghica, the alleged lover of famed and usually foreign actresses, sold tickets to their shows in front of coffee houses.

[50] At some stage in their lives, Pantazi Ghica and his friend C. A. Rosetti briefly associated with a circle of actors meeting in the house of theater manager Iorgu Caragiale (Ion Luca's uncle).

Ghica, who was charged with organizing the event, allegedly thought he could gain more favor with the monarch by using a bear which, unbeknown to Carol, had been previously tamed by Romani trainers (see Ursari).

[7] In 2010, researcher Radu Cernătescu proposed that Pantazi Ghica is the inspiration behind Gore Pirgu, the prototype social climber depicted in Craii de Curtea-Veche novel.

[53] The work, a Romanian classic, was written in the 1920s by Caragiale's estranged son Mateiu, and, Cernătescu notes, shows Ghica in company with decadent aristocrats from the Cantacuzino and Soutzos clans.