‘Man of the Mountain’: Seeing Jefferson at Monticello

Jefferson's ‘retirement’ at Monticello – built, exceptionally for a Virginia plantation house, on top of a mountain – provided the requisite audience for a carefully fashioned self-image. Its inspiration lay in classical descriptions of country living and mountain-top villas, which had been appropriated by eighteenth-century polite literature as part of the imaginary of the British landed gentleman. Although conceived as part of a process of righteous self-distancing from Europe, Jefferson's retirement nevertheless situated him in a cosmopolitan, elite and genteel company, a fact that complicated his quest to meet republican ideals.