What is "monticello"

Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, who began designing and building Monticello at age 26 after inheriting land from his father. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally , with Jefferson using slaves for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, later shifting from tobacco cultivation to wheat in response to changing markets.

Jefferson designed the main house using neoclassical design principles described by Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, subsequently reworking the design through much of his presidency to include design elements popular in late 18th-century Europe and integrating numerous of his own design solutions. Situated on the summit of an -high peak in the Southwest Mountains south of the Rivanna Gap, the name Monticello derives from the Italian for "little mount". Along a prominent lane adjacent to the house, Mulberry Row, the plantation came to include numerous outbuildings for specialized functions, e.g., a nailery; quarters for domestic slaves; gardens for flowers, produce, and Jefferson's experiments in plant breeding — along with tobacco fields and mixed crops. Cabins for field slaves were located farther from the mansion.

At Jefferson's direction, he was buried on the grounds, in an area now designated as the Monticello Cemetery. The cemetery is owned by the Monticello Association, a society of his descendants through Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. After Jefferson's death, his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph sold the property. In 1834 it was bought by Uriah P. Levy, a commodore in the U.S. Navy, who admired Jefferson and spent his own money to preserve the property. His nephew Jefferson Monroe Levy took over the property in 1879; he also invested considerable money to restore and preserve it. In 1923, Monroe Levy sold it to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (TJF), which operates it as a house museum and educational institution. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987 Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Monticello is the name of Thomas Jefferson's estate near Charlottesville, Virginia in the United States. The name may also refer to:

Monticello is a typeface, a transitional, based upon the Roman Pica no. 1 foundry type made by the American type foundry Binny & Ronaldson in the 1790s. It is considered the first typeface designed and manufactured in the United States. American Type Founders Co. issued a version, based on the original molds, named Oxford. In 1949, Linotype Corporation issued a Monticello typeface for hot metal machine composition for the published edition of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. A digital version, also named Monticello, was issued in 2003 by Matthew Carter for the Jefferson Papers. Jefferson knew and corresponded with James Ronaldson.

The Monticello was a Confederate blockade runner during the American Civil War. She was a two-masted schooner out of Havana, Cuba and of unknown nationality. She ran ashore about 6 to 8 miles east of Fort Morgan and the main inlet to Mobile Bay in Alabama on June 26, 1862, after sailing from Havana, and was then set on fire by the crew to prevent her capture. A landing party from the USS Kanawha attempted to board the vessel, but were driven off by Confederate soldiers firing from nearby on the shore. Her length was 136 feet. She was likely cruising just off shore along the Swash Channel when she ran aground.

The wreckage of the Monticello is exposed occasionally when severe storms hit the area; wreckage identified as the ship was uncovered after Hurricane Camille in 1969, after Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and after Hurricane Ike in 2008. While some speculated that a shipwreck that was unearthed after Hurricane Isaac in 2012 also the Monticello, experts later identified the ship as the Rachael, a three-mast schooner that ran aground in 1933.