Concept
Monticello
Overview
Monticello ( MON-tih-CHEL-oh) was the primary residence and plantation of Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father, author of the Declaration of Independence, and the third president of the United States. Jefferson began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at the age of 14. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally 5,000 acres (20 km2), with Jefferson using the forced labor of enslaved black people for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, later shifting from tobacco cultivation to wheat in response to changing markets. Due to its architectural and historic significance, the property has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987, Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The United States nickel has featured a depiction of Monticello on its reverse every year since 1938 with the exception of 2004–05.
Jefferson designed the main house using neoclassical design principles pioneered by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio and reworking the design through much of his presidency to include design elements popular in late 18th-century Europe and integrating numerous ideas of his own. Situated on the summit of an 850 ft-high (260 m) peak in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna Gap, the name Monticello derives from Italian meaning "little mountain". Along a prominent lane adjacent to the house, Mulberry Row, the plantation came to include numerous outbuildings for specialized functions, e.g., a nailery; quarters for slaves who worked in the home; gardens for flowers, produce, and Jefferson's experiments in plant breeding—along with tobacco fields and mixed crops. Cabins for slaves who worked in the fields were farther from the mansion.
At Jefferson's direction, he was buried on the grounds, in an area now designated as the Monticello Cemetery. The cemetery is owned by the Monticello Association, a society of his descendants through Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. After Jefferson's death, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph, apart from the small family graveyard, sold Monticello for $7,500. In 1834, it was bought and saved from ruin by Uriah P. Levy, a commodore in the U.S. Navy, for $2,500, (~$83,653 in 2024) who admired Jefferson and spent significant funds to preserve the property. His nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy took over the property in 1879; he also invested considerable funds to restore and preserve it. In 1923, Monroe Levy sold it for $500,000 (~$7.15 million in 2024) to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF), which operates it as a house museum and educational institution.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Monticello is discussed.
Some allowance, however, is to be made for the difference of latitude between these two places, the latter being 38° 8' 17", which is 52' 22" north of the former. By contemporary observations of between five and six weeks, the averaged and almost unvaried difference of the height of mercury in the barometer, at those two places, was .784 of an inch, the atmosphere at Monticello being so much the lightest, that is to…
Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. 8
states what it is; names the idea; opens on it
Monticello, June 10,1815. Dear Sir, It is long since we have exchanged a letter, and yet what volumes might have been written on the occurrences even of the last three months. In the first place, peace, God bless it!
Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4
opens on it; names the idea
_A horse-dealer in recommending a saddle horse to his client said: “If you mount this horse at four o’clock in the morning you will be in Monticello at six-thirty in the morning.” “What will I do in Monticello at six-thirty in the morning?” asked the client._ Here the displacement is very striking. The horse-dealer mentions the early arrival in the small city only with the obvious intention of proving the efficiency…
Sigmund Freud, Wit and its relation to the unconscious
names the idea
The Library purchased the unique copy for $8 at the second Brinley sale, held in March 1880.
Roger J. Trienens, Pioneer Imprints from Fifty States
commentary markers
In 1803 William James married (his third wife) Catherine Barber,[2] a daughter of John Barber, of Montgomery, Orange County, New York. The Barbers had been active people in the affairs of their day. Catherine's grandfather had been a judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and her father and her two uncles were all officers in the Revolutionary Army. One of the uncles, Francis Barber, had previously graduated from…
William James, The Letters of William James, Vol. 1
editorial apparatus; commentary markers; talks about the author, not by them
Philosophers who discussed Monticello
Related ideas
- London
- Library of Congress
- Mental disorder
- UNESCO
- Thomas Jefferson
- United States Declaration of Independence
- Italian Renaissance
- War of 1812
- Founding Fathers of the United States
- Confederate States of America
- Savannah, Georgia
- American Civil War
- Charlottesville, Virginia
- Plantation complexes in the Southern United States
Place in the tradition
Part of American philosophy.