Cotnari

Cotnari lies in the hills north-west of Iași, in a district celebrated for its vineyards. First attested in 1448, the settlement had a strong Catholic community of German and Hungarian origin. Tradition associates the growth of its vineyards with Stephen the Great, who used Cotnari as a residence; roads and stone buildings served the wine trade that made the place renowned.

In the 1560s the Protestant prince Ioan Iacob Heraclid established a Latin school at Cotnari under the scholar Johannes Sommer. The prince's church returned to Catholic use after his death. Cotnari became a regional centre of Catholic education in 1641, a role it retained until a Jesuit school at Iași succeeded it some sixty years later. Its history joins the cultivation of wine with the religious and intellectual life of Moldavia.