Jefferson in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

An Italian Friend Remembers Virginia and France (1813)

[72] kkk [An Italian Friend Remembers Virginia and France] (1813) Philip Mazzei One of the most colorful characters to emerge from Revolutionary Virginia, Philip Mazzei (1730–1816), was born in Italy and studied medicine in Florence . Disgruntled with the medical profession, he traveled to England in 1756, where he established a successful mercantile business. Encouraged by Virginia merchant Thomas Adams, Mazzei (pronounced Mah-tzay-ee) left England for Tuscany in 1772, planning to outfit an agricultural venture in Virginia . He collected grape and olive cuttings and hired several local viticulturists and oenologists to accompany him. He reached Virginia in 1773 and acquired property adjacent to Monticello, which he named Colle. When news of Lexington and Concord reached Virginia, Mazzei became a thoroughgoing American patriot, writing essays for the Virginia Gazette advocating the American cause. In 1779, Governor Patrick Henry appointed Mazzei Virginia ’s agent in Europe, though his mission was largely unsuccessful. Mazzei returned to Virginia in 1783, only to discover that his vineyard and olive orchard had been destroyed during the war. Monticello was a melancholy sight, as well. Mazzei wrote, “Monticello was a sad place for me, because I often remembered the angelic deceased wife of Jefferson. She vivified that home” (Branchi, “Memoirs,” 11). Mazzei went to Paris in 1785, where he renewed his friendship with Jefferson . Well connected among the Parisian philosophes, Mazzei introduced Jefferson to many leading French intellectuals. After Jefferson returned to the United States, he and Mazzei continued to correspond. On 24 April 1796, Jefferson wrote Mazzei a letter criticizing Federalist policies and suggesting that the Federalists were manipulating George Washington. Mazzei indiscreetly shared the letter with others, and copies of it were translated into French and published in the newspapers. The letter was badly retranslated back into English and republished in America. Known as the “Mazzei Letter ,” the document generated much criticism of Jefferson, who never really [73] mr. [thomas] adams has sold the house in which he lived, and also all his properties, and he had bought another about one hundred sixty miles above Williamsburg, in Augusta County, and about fifty miles beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains (a name given them by the first European immigrants because the atmosphere at a distance lent that color), the top of which separates Augusta County from Albemarle County, in which Mr. Jefferson is living, about twenty miles this side of the mountains. We left together to go there. We desired to determine where it was possible to construct a house, and to have an opportunity of seeing if I might buy a tract of land next to his, if the region were suitable to me. We agreed to pass two or three days with Mr. Jefferson, who lived a very short distance off our route. held Mazzei accountable for his indiscretion; the two remained friends and continued to correspond. When Mazzei was in his early eighties, he started writing his autobiography , which he completed in 1813. Dr. John Reynolds, an American physician who went to Italy to recover his health, met Mazzei toward the end of his life. Mazzei read parts of his manuscript to Reynolds and even loaned it to him to read at his leisure, as Thomas Appleton, U.S. consul at Leghorn, informed Jefferson. Mazzei left his autobiography unpublished at the time of his death on 19 March 1816. Reynolds enjoyed it so well that he proposed to publish an English translation, but he could not recruit enough subscribers to make it a viable endeavor. Reynolds advertised for subscribers in the Philadelphia Aurora , from which Jefferson learned about his proposal. In an 18 July 1816 letter to Thomas Appleton, Jefferson wrote an incisive character sketch of Mazzei: He was of solid worth; honest, able, zealous, in sound principles, moral and political constant in friendship, and punctual in all his undertakings. He was greatly esteemed in this country, and someone has inserted in our papers an account of his death, with a handsome eulogy of him, and a proposition to publish his life in one octavo volume. I have no doubt that what he has written of himself during the portion of the revolutionary period he passed with us, would furnish some good material for our history of which there is already a wonderful scarcity. (Works, 12: 16–18) Philip Mazzei jefferson in his own time [74] Mr. Jefferson was thirty-two years old [thirty, actually], or eleven younger than I; his wife was a widow when he married her at...