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7.THOMAS JEFFERSON
THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND AMERICAN FOUNDING FATHER
From ‘Mapping the Economic Grand Tour: Travel and International Emulation in Enlightenment Europe’ by Sophus A. Reinert, Harvard Business School
Thomas Jefferson indulged in many of the activities of the stereotypical Grand Tourists nevertheless his itinerary was also fundamentally inflected by exigencies of political economy. It was at the time a general tendency to combine the Enlightenment fervour for exoticism, antiquarianism and collecting with a consideration of travel as an important vector for understanding international commerce, communication, competition and emulation as well. The Grand Tour of Jefferson thus looked to the past, to the Classics (Palladianism, especially) buy also resolutely to the future. After all, Grand Tour itself proved to be a particularly vibrant chapter in the timeless flow of goods, people, and ideas that forms our past, our present, and hopefully, despite the recent nationalistic blasts of our contemporary days, our future too.
Thomas Jefferson embarked on a tour of southern France and northern areas of Italy in 1787. Departing on 28th February, he was to explore notable areas of these two countries on a tour of 1200 miles. Intriguingly, for a man of high position, he chose to travel alone and incognito as a private citizen from Virginia as opposed to a diplomat, paying his own way and opting to hire valets in each town that he reached. He reached Italy in the middle of April and stayed there until the end of the month visiting the areas around Turin, Novara, Milan and Genoa and making notes on each destination's lifestyles, environment and climate.
As an architect, Thomas Jefferson will always be connected with the figure of Andrea Palladio, the great Italian architect whose works he could reach during his trip in just two days on horseback. There are however many other inspirations that Jefferson drew from Italy. Jefferson was a very curious and educated man, who made contact with Italian aristocrats, politicians and intellectuals, and tried to study how to improve trade and how to transfer some of the best Italian products to America.