Italian American Heritage Month: Phillip Mazzei

Virginia wine country and quite possibly the United States of America as we know it may not have existed, had it not been for Italian physician Philip Mazzei. 

Born Filippo Mazzei, in Tuscany, in 1730, Mazzei practiced medicine in Italy and the Middle East for several years, before moving to London to take up a new career as a merchant. While in London, he worked as a wine merchant and met Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Adams, who convinced him to come to the U.S. for his next venture. 

In 1773, Mazzei and a group of Italians came to Virginia and introduced the cultivation of vineyards, olives and other Mediterranean fruits. Mazzei’s neighbor in Virginia happened to be Thomas Jefferson, and the two struck up a friendship, opening what was to become the first commercial vineyard in the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

In 1779, Mazzei returned to Italy as an agent for the state of Virginia, during the American Revolutionary War, seeking to borrow money for the state from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, as well as gather any useful political or military information for Virginia.