Phanar used to be a gated community, which took its name from a lighthouse nearby, with one entrance called Porta Phari. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate was moved here since 1661. One of the most reputed institutions of the community was the Greek Lyceum, which was established with special rights granted by Sultan Fatih II to the Greek Patriarchate. Along with theological studies, courses of classical and modern philosophy, philology and literature were taught here to sons of wealthy and noble aristocratic families, who were pursuing careers at the Ottoman court or to Phanariot princes to the Romanian principalities.
Not far from the actual site of the Greek Lyceum, I came across a gate that leads to a ruined palace. On a surviving wall a commemorative plate in Romanian and Turkish (photographed here). The text in my translation is:"On this site used to be the Palace rebuilt and embellished by the Moldavian Prince Dimitrie Cantemir, famous scholar of encyclopedic erudition, author of the monumental history of the Ottoman Empire, who lived in Constantinople between 1688-1710." Princes of Phanariot descent who ruled the Romanian principalities of Walachia and Moldova in the 17c and 18th c came from the families of Cantacuzene or Mavrocordat; from 1710 to 1821 six Mavrocordato, five Ghika, four Callimachi, three Soutzo, three Racovitza, two Mourousi, one Mavroyeni reigned as princes in Bucharest or Jassy. This position as well as that of Grand Dragoman, and Grand Dragoman of the Fleet gave significant power and wealth to the Phanariots in a Muslim society. With this incursion into the past of Istanbul's oldest neighborhoods, we end our third day.