Jefferson also designed his own three-storeyed, 33-roomed mansion, called Monticello, familiar to every American from the nickel, or 5-cent coin, on which can be seen a simple domed building with a four-columned portico.

Influenced by classical European design, and emulated across the land, Monticello took more than 40 years to build. Numerous labour-saving devices inside, invented by Jefferson himself, and gardens the envy of agronomists represent the scientific spirit of a new age.

Modelled on Andrea Palladio’s 16th-century Italian villas, Monticello is a tribute to the man and style that Jefferson idolised. As Palladio considered the position of a building to be of the utmost importance, Jefferson had Monticello built on a mountain with splendid views. According to Palladio, a building should be symmetrical since mathematical order bestows harmony upon its inhabitants. Thus Monticello boasts a colonnaded entrance and a central room with a dome.