This book focuses on Thomas Jefferson as an aesthetic classicist. Jefferson embraced the influence of antiquity through his adoption of classical architecture at his villas in Virginia, in order to uphold certain ideals on the art of living from Rome. Post-revolutionary America was a time of political and cultural change, and Jefferson aligned himself with a classical legacy that represented knowledge, power and art, as the new nation sought to identify itself. Alley Marie Jordan studies the classicism of Jefferson's architectural and landscape spaces, which includes Monticello, Poplar Forest and the University of Virginia. An examination of these places exposes his deeply entrenched adoption of the Classics in early America. Seeking to illuminate an under explored side of his character, Jordan deconstructs Jefferson's self-image through a classical lens and illustrates how he understood himself through the philosophy of Epicureanism, with direct implications on race and enslavement at both his villas and university. Jefferson sought to orient American, patrician and Southern culture toward an appreciation of antiquity through architecture. By looking at Enlightenment Epicureanism filtered through the poetry of Horace and Virgil, this book explores the ideals of utile dulci, the locus amoenus and otium, and why Jefferson applied them to his architectural philosophy, which was at once aesthetic and political.

Jefferson sought to blend the American landscape with classical philosophy in order to create a 'new' American identity.