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Museo Egizio

The world's oldest museum entirely devoted to Egyptian civilisation, founded in Turin in 1824 with the Drovetti collection and renewed in 2015 and 2024.

The museum's presentation image
The museum's presentation image — From the publication of Museo Egizio

The Museo Egizio of Turin, at via Accademia delle Scienze 6, is the world's oldest museum entirely devoted to Egyptian civilisation: it was born in 1824, when King Carlo Felice bought Bernardino Drovetti's collection, and opened to the public in 1832[1]. It is housed in the Collegio dei Nobili building, which it shares with the Accademia delle Scienze[1]. For the richness of its pieces it is considered among the most important in the world[2]; it holds over forty thousand artefacts and welcomes around a million visitors a year[3].

From the Mensa Isiaca to the Drovetti collection

The House of Savoy's interest in Egypt predates the museum. Around 1630 the Mensa Isiaca arrived in Turin, which the museum names as the starting point of its history; around 1759 Vitaliano Donati identified a statue of Ramesses II, among the first Egyptian monuments to reach the city[1].

Bernardino Drovetti (1776-1852), a Piedmontese who served as France's consul general in Egypt and adviser to Mohammed Ali, had assembled an initial collection of 169 papyri, 102 mummies and 95 statues; in January 1824 he sold it to Piedmont for 400,000 lire[4]. The lot included royal statues, the plan of the tomb of Ramesses IV, mine maps and the royal papyrus, which underlies Egyptian chronology[4].

In June of that same year Jean-François Champollion arrived in Turin: he stayed nine months studying the collection and published his findings in 1826[4][5]. The museum attributes to him the phrase that became its motto[6]:

"The road to Memphis and Thebes passes through Turin"

Jean-François Champollion

The building on via Accademia delle Scienze

The building was constructed from 1679 to a design by Michelangelo Garove as the Collegio dei Nobili, later extended by Giuseppe Maria Talucchi and Alessandro Mazzucchetti; the Regio Museo di Antichità ed Egizio also housed Roman, pre-Roman and prehistoric artefacts and a natural history section, and the Galleria dei Re, the Statuary, was moved to its current rooms after an initial arrangement in the opposite wing of the building[1].

Schiaparelli and the excavations in Egypt

On 30 September 1894 the directorship passed to Ernesto Schiaparelli, who found an institute at a standstill and at risk of losing its international leadership[7]. From 1903 Vittorio Emanuele III financed with his own funds the Italian Archaeological Mission, which excavated at eleven Egyptian sites until 1920[7]. In 1904, in the Valley of the Queens, Schiaparelli found the tomb of Nefertari, wife of Ramesses II; in 1906 at Deir el-Medina he discovered intact the tomb of the architect Kha and his wife Merit, together with the workers' village; at Gebelein, the tomb of Iti and Neferu with its paintings[7].

Between 1903 and 1937, under Schiaparelli and then Giulio Farina, around thirty thousand artefacts reached Turin[1]. The galleries were rearranged in 1908 and in 1924, the year of the king's official visit; for the materials from Assiut and Gebelein, Schiaparelli refurbished the wing that bears his name[1][7]. Those excavations also yielded the mummified knees held by the museum since 1905: a 2016 study by the University of Turin and the universities of Warwick and Zurich attributes them probably to Nefertari, without genetic confirmation[8].

The post-war years: a new site that never happened

In July 1949 a storm brought down a balcony of the building, injuring two young people[9]. In 1953 a new building was proposed in a corner of the Giardino Reale, near the Royal Palace, to make Turin a centre of Egyptological studies[10]. In October 1956 a pensioner died of a heart attack among mummies and sarcophagi, and was found after his daughter reported him missing[11]. In 1959 La Stampa called the museum the second in the world after the one in Cairo[12], and did so again in 1964[13]; on 18 February 1961 the director-general of Fine Arts confirmed the choice of the Giardini Reali, already indicated in 1957, and announced an international architecture competition[14].

In April 1967, in 66 crates, the rock-cut chapel of Ellesiya arrived in Turin, dating from around 1500 BC, recovered in Nubia by a mission led by Silvio Curto before the waters of the Aswan dam submerged it[15]: it was Egypt's gift for Italian help in saving the Nubian temples, and it was inaugurated in the museum on 4 September 1970[1]. In January 1969 display cases, lighting and floors had been renewed, but the opening hours made a visit difficult for much of the public[16].

The crisis of the 1970s and the Valentino project

On 1 July 1974 superintendent Silvio Curto announced an indefinite closure for lack of staff[17]; that same month the Piedmont Region stepped in to support the museum, squeezed by credit difficulties[18]. In October, ahead of its 150th anniversary, a society of supporters was formed to raise funds[19]; on 6 October the anniversary was celebrated in the presence of the directors-general of Fine Arts of Italy and Egypt[20], followed by a conference with Egyptologists from Cairo, London and Paris[21]. In August 1979 the museum was, together with the Mole and the Royal Palace, among tourists' favourite destinations, with queues at the entrance[22]; in September it hosted an exhibition on the saving of the Philae temples[23].

At the start of 1981 visitors numbered around two hundred thousand a year, and a new site was under discussion, including a building near corso Regina Margherita, judged too peripheral[24][25]. In July 1981, after years of negotiations between the City, the Province, the State and the University, the transfer to the Castello del Valentino, then home to the Faculty of Architecture, was announced[26]; from September the museum remained closed to groups until the following May due to damage in the Accademia building[27]. The transfer never took place; in the following years the restoration of the Schiaparelli wing yielded large underground rooms[1].

The Foundation and the renewed museum

On 10 October 2004 the Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie di Torino was created, the first Italian case of private participation in the management of public cultural heritage: founding members were the Ministry, the Region, the Province (which left in 2015), the City, the Compagnia di San Paolo and the Fondazione CRT[28]. For the 2006 Winter Olympics, Dante Ferretti redesigned the Statuary[1]. After more than three years of works, on 1 April 2015 a museum with almost double the floor space, from 6,400 to 10,000 square metres, reopened, extended into the spaces of the former Galleria Sabauda, with 3,300 objects displayed over five floors[2][28].

Since 2014 it has been directed by Christian Greco, previously a curator at the Leiden museum, chosen through an international selection process[28]. In February 2018 Giorgia Meloni protested outside the museum against the promotion "Lucky those who speak Arabic"; Greco recalled the millions of Coptic Christians in Egypt who speak Arabic[29]. In 2023 figures from Fratelli d'Italia and the Lega challenged his reappointment, and the regional government expressed confidence in him[30]. In 2024 the Ministry considered replacing president Evelina Christillin, in office since 2012, with Zahi Hawass; the other members asked for continuity[31].

The bicentenary

On 20 November 2024, for its two hundredth anniversary, the new Galleria dei Re was inaugurated, redesigned by the Dutch studio OMA together with the museum's Egyptologists: in place of Ferretti's "Reflections in Stone" installation, with the statues in darkness, there is now natural light, and the two Karnak sphinxes once again face each other[3]. In 2018 Greco had announced:

"I intend to completely change the Egizio's Galleria dei Re, which the public loves but we archaeologists do not, because the statues are decontextualised"

Christian Greco, 2018

In early October 2024 the section "Materia. Forma del tempo" ("Matter. The shape of time"), on the materials of ancient Egypt, had opened[3][6]. Christillin has been confirmed as president until 2028[3], and in June 2025 Greco secured a third term, until 2028[32]. On 12 September 2026, during the celebration for the new pedestrian via Roma, the museum was opened free of charge together with Palazzo Madama, the MAO and the Museo Nazionale del Risorgimento Italiano[33].

Pages linking here

Related articles: Transport in Turin, Via Roma

Sources

  1. Museo Egizio
  2. Treccani
  3. Il Post — 21 November 2024
  4. Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
  5. Treccani, Enciclopedia Italiana
  6. Museo Egizio
  7. Treccani, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani
  8. Il Post — 7 December 2016
  9. La Stampa, 07/07/1949, n. 161, p. 2 — 7 July 1949
  10. La Stampa, 10/03/1953, n. 59, p. 2 — 10 March 1953
  11. La Stampa, 19/10/1956, n. 246, p. 2 — 19 October 1956
  12. La Stampa, 13/12/1959, n. 295, p. 2 — 13 December 1959
  13. La Stampa, 08/11/1964, n. 257, p. 11 — 8 November 1964
  14. La Stampa, 18/02/1961, n. 42, p. 3 — 18 February 1961
  15. La Stampa, 22/04/1967, n. 95, p. 7 — 22 April 1967
  16. La Stampa, 29/01/1969, n. 24, p. 6 — 29 January 1969
  17. Stampa Sera, 01/07/1974, n. 146, p. 1 — 1 July 1974
  18. La Stampa, 05/07/1974, n. 146, p. 5 — 5 July 1974
  19. La Stampa, 01/10/1974, n. 220, p. 8 — 1 October 1974
  20. La Stampa, 06/10/1974, n. 225, p. 8 — 6 October 1974
  21. La Stampa, 08/10/1974, n. 226, p. 7 — 8 October 1974
  22. Stampa Sera, 13/08/1979, n. 212, p. 19 — 13 August 1979
  23. Stampa Sera, 10/09/1979, n. 239, p. 7 — 10 September 1979
  24. Stampa Sera, 28/01/1981, n. 27, p. 13 — 28 January 1981
  25. Stampa Sera, 28/01/1981, n. 27, p. 14 — 28 January 1981
  26. La Stampa, 25/07/1981, n. 175, p. 13 — 25 July 1981
  27. La Stampa, 25/09/1981, n. 227, p. 12 — 25 September 1981
  28. Museo Egizio
  29. Il Post — 12 February 2018
  30. Il Post — 22 September 2023
  31. Il Post — 17 June 2024
  32. Il Post — 19 June 2025
  33. TorinoClick — 14 September 2026

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