Luca Arbore | |
|---|---|
 Votive portrait in Arbore Church, ca. 1504 | |
| Gatekeeper of Suceava | |
| In office September 14, 1486 – March 25, 1523 | |
| Personal details | |
| Died | April 1523 Hârlău |
| Nationality | Moldavian |
| Spouse | Iuliana |
| Nickname(s) | Herborus Copacius Luca the Vlach? Ulyuka? |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Moldavia |
| Years of service | 1486–1523 |
| Rank | Spatharios (intermittently) Hetman (attributed posthumously) |
| Commands | Moldavian military forces |
| Battles/wars | Polish–Moldavian Wars (1494, 1502, 1505–1510) Battle of Ștefănești (1518) |
Luca Arbore or Arbure (Old Cyrillic: Лꙋка Арбꙋрє;[1] Renaissance Latin: Herborus[2] or Copacius;[3] died April 1523) was a Moldavian boyar, diplomat, and statesman, several times commander of the country's military. He first rose to prominence in 1486, during the rule of Stephen III, Prince of Moldavia, to whom he was possibly related. He became the long-serving gatekeeper (or castellan) of Suceava, bridging military defense and administrative functions with a diplomatic career. Arbore therefore organized the defense of Suceava during the Polish invasion of 1497, after which he was confirmed as one of Moldavia's leading courtiers.
As a military commander, Arbore participated in Moldavian's occupation of Pokuttya in 1502. He is tentatively identified as "Luca the Vlach", who served Stephen on crucial diplomatic missions to Poland and the Grand Duchy of Moscow. Also a great landowner and patron of the arts, Arbore commissioned the painting of Arbore Church. The building is one of the eight Moldavian churches on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Gatekeeper Arbore was identified, possibly erroneously, as a pretender to the Moldavian throne in 1505. He still served Stephen's son Bogdan III, who needed his services in particular during the Moldavian–Polish border clashes of that year. He maintained his position despite suffering defeat, and, possibly as a hetman, went on to serve as tutor of Bogdan's orphaned son, Stephen IV "Ștefăniță". As such, he aligned the country with Poland and waged war against the Crimean Khanate (a proxy for the Ottoman Empire), winning a major victory at Ștefănești in August 1518.
In 1523, the prince accused the Arbore males of insubordination, and had most of them executed. Although the original accusation was probably spurious, the execution itself sparked an actual boyar revolt. The Arbore line was largely extinguished in 1523, but survived mainly through female descendants; the name was eventually reused by people who were distantly related to the original family, including, in the late 19th-century, the scholar-politician Zamfir Arbore. By then, the gatekeeper had also been recovered as a symbolic figure in the literature of authors such as Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, Mihai Eminescu, and Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea.
- ^ Constantin Velichi, "Documente inedite de la Ștefan-cel-mare la Ieremia Movilă", in Revista Istorică, Issues 7–9/1934, p. 245
- ^ Nicolae Iorga, "Cronică", in Revista Istorică, Issues 7–9/1934, p. 291
- ^ Pâslariuc, pp. 8, 15