The fountain pen

Petrache Poenaru (1799 - 1875) was a famous Romanian inventor of the Enlightenment era.
Poenaru, who had studied in Paris and Vienna and, later, completed his specialized studies in England. He was secretary and bosom man of Tudor Vladimirescu, was a mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, teacher and organizer of the educational system, as well as a politician, agronomist, and zootechnologist, founder of the Philharmonic Society, the Botanical Gardens and the National Museum of Antiquities in Bucharest, member of Romanian Academy (1870), chair of the Society for the Romanian People Education (1872). Poenaru also designed the current tricolour flag of Romania.


While a student in Paris, Petrache Poenaru invented the world's first fountain pen (named "stilograph" - "un plume sans fin, portative, s’alimentant d’encre d’elle meme"), an invention for which the French Government issued the 3208 patent on May 25, 1827.