building the american landscape - Univerza v Novi Gorici

adopted by Jefferson as an architect. His strict use of Neo‐Palladian designs [Figure
2] made Jefferson an up‐to‐date architect who supported the choices of the main
protagonists of the late Enlightenment. Furthermore, his allusions to Renaissance,
Roman and Greek architecture acquired the meaning in far‐away Virginia of a
fundamental commemoration. The classicism of Jefferson’s neo‐Palladianism, his
interest in agriculture, represented the programmatic, barely concealed dream of
creating a rural landscape of bucolic and democratic inspiration.
The past did not simply recall the justice of those far‐away times, but used
architecture to bring back hope and faith, too, in the forms of the newly‐born
Republic. Therefore, our interest in Monticello, with its 5,000 acres of land
(approximately 2,000 hectares), is not in the building itself, nor in its decorations,
but in the agricultural vocation of the building, which, with its vegetable and flower
gardens, plantations and roads, proves it is a perfect workhouse of nature [Figure
3]. The formal perfection of the architecture and the completeness of the
architectural project divert our attention from the experimental and at times even
ephemeral use of the landscape [Figure 4‐5] .
The Italian, Filippo Mazzei, played a privileged role in the agricultural development
of the Monticello estate. He was a versatile character, who was to become a
frequent visitor and friend of Jefferson and of other influential politicians from the
moment of his arrival in Virginia in 1773, in the wake of a group of Tuscan farmers.
Jefferson, who felt the Italian influence so deeply that he had called his estate
Monticello 15 , gave him the use of a nearby property named Colle, and became a
staunch friend of Mazzei, who reciprocated in turn with the supply and the sale of
plants, vegetables and vines 16 .
However, the role of Filippo Mazzei in the history of the birth of the American
Republic goes far beyond the role of a simple farmer dedicated to the
contemplation of nature. As numerous detailed research studies have already
15 See GOODWIN, S. Lucia, “Italians in the Monticello orchard” in STANTON, C. Lucia, Anniversary
dinner at Monticello, April 12, 1982, in memory of Thomas Jefferson, Charlottesville, Thomas
Jefferson Memorial Foundation, 1982 and the link
http://wiki.monticello.org/mediawiki/index.php/Italian_Influence_in_the_Orchard URL visited May
28, 2012
16 See MHS archive, Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Papers, Garden Book, pp.
15,22,29,30,31,35,40
16