Persona

Vassalli, (Bey) Luigi

1812-1887

Italian Egyptologist; he was born in Milan, 8 Jan. 1812, son of Giuseppe V. and Maddalena Brutpacher; he studied painting but was later involved in a political plot, and was condemned to death, although afterwards the sentence was commuted and he was released; he took refuge in Switzerland, France and England where he earned a living by teaching Italian and selling pictures; he went to Egypt about 1841 where he lived as a portrait-painter and dealer; he returned to Milan, 1848, but again went into exile in Egypt in 1849; he travelled to Constantinople and Smyrna, where he married; his wife died a few months later, and he returned to Egypt; as a dealer he had become acquainted with Mariette by 1853 when he sold him the coffin of King Intef; in 1856 he sold some important papyri to the British Museum (EA 100068, 100083, 10403); in 1859 he became assistant to Mariette and conducted many of his excavations; he served in Garibaldi's army, 1860, and was named curator of Egyptian antiquities at the Naples Museum, 1860; he was Keeper of the Bulaq Museum, 1865-83; temporary Director, 18 Jan.-7 Feb. 1881; he retired to Milan in 1883 and then Rome in 1884; he published Opuscules Divers, 2 vols. 1864-7; I Monumenti istorici egizi, it Musueo e gli scavi d'antichita eseguiti per ordine di S. A. Vicere Ismail Pascia; notizia sommaria, 1869; I Musei Egizi d'Italia, 1873; there is a marble bust of him in the Cairo Museum; a collection of his Egyptian antiquities and books was acquired in the 1930s by the American collector Horace L. Mayer, who were donated many to the Boston Museum; his papers are in the Griffith Institute, Oxford, and at Milan; he died in Rome, 13 June 1887.

• Who Was Who in Egyptology (4th ed. 2012), 553-4.