Room 6 – The Armoury and the Ottoman siege of 1476

Narration text

In the Armoury you can see reconstructed soldiers of the oastea mică, the prince's standing force, together with their weapons. This is the place to tell the citadel's most glorious story. In July 1476, Sultan Mehmed II, conqueror of Constantinople, defeated Stephen the Great's army at Valea Albă–Războieni, about 25 kilometres from here.

Believing Stephen had taken refuge in Neamț Citadel, the sultan marched on it. The Italian eyewitness Angiolello wrote that the Turks set up seven bombards and for eight days tried to take the fortress, but two bombards burst, and those inside "would not parley and all defended themselves with artillery." The chronicler Ion Neculce tells how the citadel's gunners struck the mouth of a Turkish cannon and shattered it, and even hit the sultan's tent.

The Moldo-German chronicle adds that the Ottoman artillery commander was shot. The sultan withdrew. A small garrison had stopped the greatest army of its age.