University of Virginia Library

Maria Cosway

During the remainder of the year Jefferson and others wrote a series of descriptions of the
present state of the university and its buildings. On 19 October Jefferson told William Short
that "our University still wants the key-stone of it's arch the Rotunda; but even in it's present
state it is worth a visit, as a specimen of classical architecture which would be remarked in
Europe."[537] (He also informed Short of the General Assembly's belligerent refusal to fund
the building of the library.) A few days later Jefferson wrote to his old "dear friend" whom
he met in 1786 during his stay in Paris, Maria Cosway, now widowed and retired from her
great house on Stratford Place in London to her convent in Lodi, Italy.[538] Jefferson
approved of his old intimate's decision to change her place of abode from "the eternal clouds
and rains of England, to the genial sun & bright skies of Lodi," and noted the irony of their
mutual pursuits in old age.

The sympathies of our earlier days harmonise, it seems in age also. you retire to your
College of Lodi, and nourish the natural benevolence of your excellent heart by
communicating your own virtues to the young of your sex who may hereafter load with
blessings the memory of her to whom they will owe so much. I am laying the foundation of
an University in my native state, which I hope will repay the liberalities of it's legislature by
improving the virtue and science of their country, already blest with a soil and climate
emulating those of your favorite Lodi. I have been myself the Architect of the plan of it's
buildings, and of it's system of instruction. four years have been employed in the former,
and I assure you it would be thought a handsome & Classical thing in Italy. I have preferred
the plan of an Academical village rather than that of a single, massive structure. the
diversified forms which this admitted in the different Pavilions, and varieties of the finest
samples of architecture, has made of it a model of beauty original and unique. it is within
view too of Monticello, So it's most splendid object, and a constant gratification to my sight.
we have still one building to erect, which will be on the principle of your Pantheon a
Rotunda like that, but of half it's diameter and height only. I wish indeed you could recall
some of your by-past years, and seal it with your approbation.[539]

Although she outlived Jefferson by nearly 12 years, Cosway preferred the confines of her
own community for the rest of her life and thus never visited Jefferson's university (see
appendix I).

Jefferson wrote to Albert Gallatin in Paris on 29 October with a request for him to judge
whether his letter to Cosway could be conveyed "more safely thro' the public mail, or by any
of the diplomatic couriers, liable to the curiosity & carelessness of public offices." He also
informed Gallatin of the status of the university, writing that "Our University of Virginia my
present hobby, has been at a stand for a twelve month past, for want of funds. our last
legislature refused every thing. the late elections give better hopes of the next. the institution
is so far advanced that it will force itself through. so little is now wanting that the first
liberal legislature will give it it's last lift. the buildings are in a style of purely classical
architecture, and, altho' not yet finished, are become an object of visit to all strangers."[540]
Jefferson wrote similarly to Henry A. S. Dearborne on the last day of October, saying that
"Our Virginia University is now my sole occupation. it is within sight of Monticello, and the
buildings nearly finished; and we shall endeavor, by the best Professors either side of the
Atlantic can furnish to make it worthy of the public notice."[541]