"The Favorite Passion
of My Soul"

Thomas Jefferson to Giovanni Fabbroni
Holograph letter,
June 8, 1778
Manuscript Division
State Department transfer, 1904 (8.4)

In the midst of the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson still found time for music, which he called "the favorite passion of my soul" in this letter to Giovanni Fabbrioni. Jefferson maintained a life-long interest in music, collected numerous treatises on music, and tried to foster an appreciation of music in America, where Jefferson asserted "it [music] is in a state of deplorable barbarism."