Construction

Jefferson’s Rotunda was designed as the University of Virginia’s library. The building is a modified, half-scale interpretation of the Pantheon in Rome influenced by Palladian design. While historic precedent called for a church at the center of a college campus, Jefferson intentionally placed the library, a temple to knowledge representing “the authority of nature and the power of reason,” at the center of the Academical Village.

Though his original plan for the University was only a collection of Pavilions and student quarters with no centerpiece, Jefferson quickly adopted the concept of a domed central building at the suggestion of architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Jefferson acknowledges Palladian influence in his plans for the Academical Village in a letter to his friend Thomas Appleton, March 16, 1821. The Rotunda was still under construction when Jefferson died in 1826. Before his death, Jefferson dined with the Marquis de Lafayette in what would become the Dome Room, open to the stars.

Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to Benjamin Henry Latrobe, June 12, 1817. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Digital Edition. University of Virginia Press, Rotunda, Charlottesville, VA.