Thomas Jef­fer­son (1743–1826), author of the Amer­i­can Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence and third pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States, was also a tal­ent­ed archi­tect of neo­clas­si­cal build­ings. He designed Mon­ti­cel­lo (1769–1809), his plan­ta­tion home, and his ide­al ‘aca­d­e­m­i­cal vil­lage‘ (1817–26), which is still the heart of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Vir­ginia. Jefferson‘s use of an archi­tec­tur­al vocab­u­lary based upon clas­si­cal antiq­ui­ty sym­bol­izes both the aspi­ra­tions of the new Amer­i­can repub­lic as the inher­i­tor of Euro­pean tra­di­tion and the cul­tur­al exper­i­men­ta­tion that could be expect­ed as the coun­try matured.