Coat of arms of the Sturdza, Romanian Phanariote aristocrats; shield shape, field tinctures and overall design as rendered in the various editions of Eugene Rizo Rangabé, Livre d'or de la noblesse phanariote en Grèce, en Roumanie, en Russie et en Turquie; tinctures for charges found in other renditions.Lion based on a design by Albrecht Dürer. As per Rizo Rangabé, it is shown holding up a caduceus. Other versions show a sword wrapped with snakes, which is a corruption of the earliest depictions, which have a sword wrapped in olive branches (as noted in  Roxana Patras, "S de la Sturdza", in Timpul, March 12, 2015).Snake-on-cross based on depiction in the shield attributed to Ilie Sturdza by Alexandru A. C. Sturza, which uses a Latin cross (in Dan Cernovodeanu, Știința și arta heraldică în România, p. 417. Bucharest: Editura științifică și enciclopedică, 1977); the cross here is pattée and crowned, as in Rizo Rangabé.Inescutcheon is a variant of the arms of Moldavia (aurochs based on the Bessarabian shield of 1878, with elements from Rizo Rangabé).Sturdza motto is UTROQUE CLARESCERE PULCHRUM (Latin for "Is Shines Everywhere and Exquisitely"), with depiction based on the Baden-Baden variant of the arms. Mantling reuses elements of the Waldeck-Pyrmont arms.
Own work
Dahn