13 April 2016. Egyptology came to life thanks to Napoleon’s intuition to attach to his military forces in his Egypt campaign (1798-99) a scientific expedition constituted of 167 scholars who wrote and collected enough material for a 7,000 page reports and memoires. At the time, these contributed to the diffusion of a new trend: Egypt-mania. “Great explorers, great collectors: Treasures of Egyptian Museums of Florence and Turin” is the title of the conference held by researcher Paola Boffula Alimeni on Thursday 14th April at 18:00 at the Italian Cultural Institute of Sydney. The scope of the conference promoted by IIC is to invite people to visit the museums and encourage learning of the themes covered by putting some of the treasures on display. The introductory memo sent out by the Italian Cultural Institute reads “The romantic imagination of Europe is won over by the ‘Descriptions de l’Egypte’ in which the major archaeological sites of the country were meticulously exposed. Archaelogists and scholars, merchants and adventurers, collectors and antiquarians all fascinated by the sense of mystery and eternity, visited the country by researching every possible artefact that would enrich the first cabinets of curiosity to pass on to noble salons and finally to constitute the first Egyptian museum in the world in Turin”.
