University of Virginia Library

Italian Stonecutters

The Philadelphia brickworkers' experience in stonework advanced the general progress of
stonework at the site, potentially one of the most troublesome aspects of Jefferson's
architectural plan. Also, they arrived just in time to give him some consolation regarding the
carving of the marble capitals, four columns each on two Corinthian pavilions, four Ionic
pavilions, and four Doric pavilions.[249] Although Michele and Giacomo Raggi had sailed
from Leghorn in March, at the end of May Jefferson was still in the dark about when they
might arrive.[250] Jefferson already had "begun to despair" of their ever arriving and had
written to Cardelli in Washington in search of one "as could carve an Ionic or Corinthian
capitel"; Cardelli replied that marble carvers there demanded $3 a day.[251] In late June
Dabney S. Carr sent word to Jefferson that the Italians had arrived in Baltimore after a
three-month voyage on the Brig Strong but could not gain passage on the steamboat for
Norfolk "owing to their not having performed Quarantine." Hence, against Jefferson's
previous express orders, they traveled to Charlottesville by stagecoach.[252] The sculptors
finally arrived at the university site on the last day of June, right before Jefferson was
scheduled to set off for Bedford. Jefferson wrote Proctor Brockenbrough in pressing tones
urging him to come immediately to the university:

I think your presence here immediately is indispensably necessary. these men are to be
lodged, boarded & set to work. this requires the Quarriers to get to work for raising the
stone, common stonecutters to prepare the blocks and other arrangements to get them under
way. the Philadelphia workmen will need your presence also for a short time to set them to
work, point out the place for their brickyard and other particulars better known to you than
myself. in the present unsettled state of things I cannot think of leaving the place for
Bedford until your arrival here, and the delay is very distressing to me. . . . I count on being
able to depart myself within 24. hours after your arrival here.[253]

The Italian stone sculptors had been at the university only a few days when they examined
the university's quarry and, in Jefferson's words to four fellow members of the Board of
Visitors, "pronounce it impossible to make of it an Ionic or Corinthian capitel." What was
worse, Jefferson added, "they can work only in these ornamental parts, & not at all in plain
work. I never was so nonplussed. they have cost us a great deal of money, & how to avoid
it's becoming a loss, & how to get our work done, is the difficulty. I shall consult with mr
Brockenbrough on it to-day, & depart [for Poplar Forest] tomorrow." The two men decided
to let the sculptors make trial on the leaves of a Corinthian capital; if that failed then they
could carve the plainer Ionic capitals out of the stone and find other stone for the Corinthian
capitals. Jefferson closed the letter to the visitors on a positive tone, "the Philadelphians had
arrived at the University & had set to work," he said.[254] Two weeks later Richard Ware
commented that the stonecutters had quarried two pieces of marble and was squaring it to 22
inches square by 10 inches thick. "The Italians look sower at those Stones," Ware
commented, but "in my Opinion it will look well when worked the grit is hard &
Sharp-verry hard-upon tools but it can be worked."[255]