SANT'ANGELO IN VADO

 

Examining the human rights, the historical events and the characters, we realised the steps made by the liberty achievements within the centuries, into the outline of national and international history:

- in the Italian history, we examined Filippo Mazzei;

 

 

 

FILIPPO MAZZEI

 

 

Filippo Mazzei, born in Poggio in Caiano on 25th December 1730 and died in Pisa on 19th March 1816, was an Italian doctor, philosopher and essayist. Cadet of a noble family of viticulturists, he was an active and eclectic person, a philosopher, promulgator of the individual liberty, of the civil rights and the religious tolerance. He had an adventurous and active life, and an instable economic situation.

He’s considered by the historians one of the fathers of The Declaration of American Independence, as he was an intimate friend of the first five American presidents: George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, James Monroe and above all Thomas Jefferson, of which he was an inspirator, neighbour, associate in business..

After the studies completed between Prato and Florence in the 1752, he lived in Pisa and Livorno, working successfully as a doctor.

 

In 1754 he arrived in London, where he managed to make money in the following fifteen years dealing in the Mediterranean products, mainly wine, and becoming part of the high London bourgeoisie. In this period, his short Italian stay ended up in an quick return to England after being reported to the court of Inquisition, charged with “import of prohibited books”. The Enlightenment

and the ideas of religious freedom that animated Mazzei, well tolerated in London at the end of  XVIII century, were taboo in the religious Italian reality, held in the Counter-Reformation’s iron grip.

 

In the London circles Filippo Mazzei met Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Adams, two of the main protagonists of the forthcoming American’s Revolution. Invited by these American friends, attracted by the curiosity for that new form of government, and especially by the big lands availability and the perspective of planting Mediterranean cultivations in the New World, in1733 Mazzei  moved to Virginia, with an equip of Tuscan  agriculturists.                                                                                                                                                 

Mazzei, bound at first for a different place, stopped nearby the estate of Monticello to meet Thomas Jefferson.   

                                                                                                                                                                    The level of the Americans frequentations dragged quickly Mazzei in the political life of the seething colony of Virginia.                                                                                                                                                                        

He wrote vehement books against the oppressive England domination , exalting  the liberty and equality; some were translated in English by Jefferson, who was so impressed by the ideals inside them, that you can find some phrases of Mazzei transposed in the Declaration of independence of the USA.

After being elected speaker of the parish assembly after only six months since his arrival in Virginia, Mazzei could state his ideas about the religious and political liberty to an immense audience, where even humble and illiterate people were listening to him carefully. 

One of his works, "Instructions of the Freeholders of Albemarle County to their Delegates in Convention", was used by Jefferson as a draft for the first attempt of writing  the Constitution of the state of Virginia.

 

After becoming naturalized of Virginia, he was a volunteer since the beginning of the war of American Independence, then in 1778 he was sent to Europe by Jefferson and Madison in order to ask for loans, buy arms and get political and military information that could have been useful to the rising nation.

 

In this period he wrote newspaper articles, made public speeches and tried to start business and political relationships between Europe and Virginia, being regularly paid for his work from 1779 to 1784.

Mazzei went back to Virgina in 1783, but to his great disappointment he wasn’t appointed consul, and definitely left the American land two years later. However, he kept contact with many of the great “fathers of the American country”, in particular with Jefferson: they met again afterwards in Paris.

 

Filippo Mazzei was a great personality, and the students were fascinated by his cultural influence on the great protagonists of the American history.

 

 

 ←       see also a portrait