More to Wine and Olive Oil: The Tuscan Philip Mazzei and the Declaration of Independence

Filippo Mazzei, or as he has come to be known in the English speaking world, Philip Mazzei, is a name that very few will recognize. But many will be surprised knowing that he was a great friend of Thomas Jefferson and actively contributed to the writing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

Philip Mazzei was born in Poggio a Caiano in Tuscany, Italy, on Christmas day of 1730 and has always been the archetype of the modern man. Borrowing the term from vintners, we could define him a super Tuscan. Always on the move and constantly searching for new challenges, he led a life of intense traveling, study, political activism, and writing. Thanks to these characteristics of his, he got to meet and know Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith.

After becoming a physician and exercising his profession in Florence, Italy, and in the Middle East for few years, he moved to London, England, in 1755, to become an importer with his mercantile firm. In London he met Jefferson and Smith, after having corresponded with them for business reasons. Jefferson convinced Mazzei to undertake a new challenge, that of starting a vineyard and a wine-making farm in Virginia, Jefferson's homeland.

Mazzei moved to Virginia in 1773 with his wife-to-be and many vintners and started the vineyard with Jefferson. While there he got very much involved with the political activity of the country, until it culminated with the War of Independence. He shared many libertarian ideologies with Jefferson, and after being naturalized as a citizen of Virginia he enrolled as a private to fight against the English army during the Independence War. While due to a frost the vineyard and the wine-making business never grew, Mazzei's political stature started thriving. Jefferson used one of the friend's writings to write a new state constitution for Virginia, and Mazzei supported Jefferson's petition to end spiritual despotism. In 1778 Mazzei returned to Italy and continued to serve the revolution until 1784 by shipping weapons to Virginia thanks to the financing of the Grand Duke of Tuscany.

What very few know, is that Thomas Jefferson allegedly paraphrased one of Mazzei's writings when inserting the U.S. Declaration of Independence article stating that "all men are created equal". In spite of the many trying to discredit Mazzei's involuntary contribution to such an important document, a joint resolution of the Congress has established that the sentence and the ideal behind it had been the fruit of his mind. President J.F. Kennedy, in his book "A Nation of Immigrants", also supports Mazzei as the author behind such a fundamental human right.

Another great contribution of this tireless Tuscan man is his four-volume opera written in French on the American Revolution from a political perspective. The title of the book is "Recherches historiques et politiques sur les Etats-Unis de l'Amerique septentrionale" and since it was the first book about the American Revolution to be written in French, the book became an important document contrasting the British propaganda of the time and the sole source of information for the otherwise uninformed French bourgeoisie that would eventually lead the French Revolution in 1789.
Philip Mazzei died in Pisa, Tuscany in 1816, after living an intense life that brought him from Tuscany to the United States leaving behind an important legacy that still today we can enjoy.