America's Forgotten Founding Father: A Novel Based on the Life of Filippo Mazzei

by Rosanne Welch

Overview

His loyalty lasted a lifetime...

Surgeon, merchant, vintner, and writer Filippo Mazzei influenced American business, politics, and philosophy. Befriending Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Mazzei was a strong liaison for others in Europe. Mazzei was Jefferson's inspiration for the most famous line in the Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal."

Clearly, Mazzei had a gift of language and often used his words to share his ideas about religious freedom. Mazzei encouraged other Italians still living overseas to join him in a country rich with opportunity and promise. Often, when returning from Italy, he booked passages on ships for people who desired to travel to America and employed them on his estate--just to ensure a better, more fruitful life for everyone. During those travels, Mazzei found himself at the center of many fights for freedom.

He was truly a friend to freedom around the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781947431072
Publisher:	Barbera Foundation Inc
Publication date:	02/01/2018
Pages:	262
Product dimensions:	5.25(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.59(d)

About the Author

Rosanne Welch is a writer, producer and university professor with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, Touched by an Angel, and ABC NEWS/Nightline. Other books include Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture (McFarland, 2017) and Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection (ABC-CLIO, 2017). Welch has also published chapters in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television (I. B.Tauris) and The American Civil War on Film and TV: Blue and Gray in Black and White and Color (Lexington Books, 2018), and an essay in Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. By day she teaches courses on the history of screenwriting and on television writing for the Stephens College MFA in screenwriting programs. Her talk The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room at the 2016 TEDxCPP can be viewed at https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JFNsqKBRnA.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter One: Family First and Foremost

Chapter Two: Friends (and Lovers) at School

Chapter Three: On His Own Yet Never Alone

Chapter Four: Travels in Turkey

Chapter Five: A New Life in London

Chapter Six: Italy and the Inquisition

Chapter Seven: Befriending Franklin and Building a Fortune

Chapter Eight: Befriending Jefferson in Virginia and Building a “Society to Our Taste”

Chapter Nine: Founding a Farm and Fomenting Rebellion

Chapter Ten: Elected to Represent His New Country

Chapter Eleven: Feet on the Ground to Stand Their Ground

Chapter Twelve: Defending Virginia with All They Had to Offer

Chapter Thirteen: Wartime Travels and Travails

Chapter Fourteen: Representing His New Country in France

Chapter Fifteen: Finding Friends and Family in Italy

Chapter Sixteen: Returning to His Adopted Country

Chapter Seventeen: With Jefferson in Europe

Chapter Eighteen: Alone in Europe on the Eve of Change

Chapter Nineteen: True Love at Last

Epilogue

About the Author

Editorial Reviews

"An unusual...portrait of a man whose importance to the founding of the United States has

indeed been generally overlooked... Filled with intriguing historical tidbits."

-- Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2018-03-24
Welch's (Why the Monkees Matter, 2016, etc.) historical novel pays tribute to the real-life Filippo Mazzei, an Italian surgeon, merchant, revolutionary, and writer who was friends with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.Mazzei is born on Christmas Day, 1730, in the small Tuscan town of Poggio a Caiano, the third son of a mother whose love and devotion were reserved for her firstborn, Jacopo. Fortunately, Mazzei's paternal grandfather is a kind, generous role model through his first seven years. And the sting of his mother's favoritism for Jacopo, a manipulative thief, serves Mazzei well, propelling him into a life of adventure and accomplishment: "I will spend the rest of my life proving you have given all your love to the wrong son," he tells his mother. He studies medicine in Florence, then moves to the port city of Livornoto practice. Even as a child, he'd begun questioning the injustices in life, but in Livorno, he begins interacting with a wide circle of intellectuals with whom he debates history and philosophy. Eventually, he moves to London and opens a shop in 1764, establishing himself as a successful importer. More critically, he meets Benjamin Franklin; it's a connection that leads to Mazzei's 1773 voyage to the American Colonies, where he builds his new home adjacent to that of Thomas Jefferson—just in time for the American Revolution. Welch's volume rests somewhere between novel and biography, lacking the dramatic passion of the former and the cited source material of the latter. Still, she offers an unusual, if at times hagiographic, portrait of a man whose importance to the founding of the United States has indeed been generally overlooked. Most intriguing are the sections detailing Mazzei's close friendship with Jefferson, which led the two to work together on the text of the Declaration of Independence. Their wide-ranging conversations, as depicted by Welch, reveal as much about Jefferson as they do about Mazzei; they include the latter's long-held belief in equality and justice as well as their shared interests in agriculture, architecture, language, and religion.A biographical novel with an overly reverential tone but filled with intriguing historical tidbits.

Kirkus Reviews