From Egypt to Bologna
Most of the Egyptian mummies in the Bologna Archaeological Museum once belonged to the collection of the Bolognese artist Pelagio Palagi (1775-1860). Between 1825 and 1845, Palagi acquired over three thousand Egyptian antiquities, which he then offered at a reasonable price to his hometown through a bequest in his will.
Palagi purchased the mummy with the painted shroud along with a thousand other objects in 1831 from Giuseppe Nizzoli, former chancellor of the Austrian consulate in Egypt. In the Catalogo Dettagliato della Raccolta di Antichità Egizie riunite da Giuseppe Nizzoli (Detailed Catalogue of the Collection of Egyptian Antiquities gathered by Giuseppe Nizzoli), published in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1827, there is a useful description for understanding the archaeological context of this mummy’s provenance: “A mummy of Greek style (without a coffin, found in a tomb, arranged in a row with others of the same kind) wrapped in bandages with very curious paintings, and of a totally different kind.” After Palagi’s death, the mummy and the other Egyptian antiquities were transferred from his house-museum in Milan to Bologna, where they were then exhibited in Palazzo Galvani, the current seat of the museum.
Following the conclusion of this exhibition, the mummy with the painted shroud will once again be on public display in the Egyptian collection of the Bologna Archaeological Museum.
