History of Pitesti

toman overlords, Aloisio Gritti (governor of Ottoman Hungary) and his Wallachian boyar partisans camped in the Pitești neighborhood of Războieni, where they were attacked and defeated by the Prince. In 1600-1601, troops of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, led by Jan Zamoyski, were stationed in Pitești during their expedition against Michael the Brave (see Moldavian Magnate Wars). Around that time, fighting occurred in and around the town as the new prince Radu Șerban clashed with the Ottomans and their Crimean Khanate allies.

Constantin Șerban financed the building of the Orthodox Saint George Church, completed in 1656; it was accompanied by a since-lost palace and adjacent gardens. Around that time, the city was visited by the Arab chronicler Paul of Aleppo and by the Swedish politician Claes Rålamb. It was during Brâncoveanu's rule that the city was home to Stolnic Constantin Cantacuzino, coinciding with the letters he exchanged with the English statesman William, Baron Paget. A tower and other princely houses, built by Brâncoveanu outside the town, gradually deteriorated over the 18th and 19th century (the last standing structure was lost in the 20th century). In 1689, Habsburg troops led by Louis William of Baden occupied the city as part of the Great Turkish War (they were repelled later that year).

18th and early 19th centuries

In November 1714, as a direct result of Swedish defeats in the Great Northern War against Imperial Russia, Swedish King Charles XII unsuccessfully sought an alliance with Sultan Ahmed III; on his way back from Istanbul, the monarch, met by troops under the command of Axel Sparre, passed through Pitești, and, after a three-week stay, made his way to Swedish Pomerania through Habsburg-ruled regions. During the Austro-Turkish War of