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Unlike the other large collections of Egyptian artifacts that were being formed in all of Europe in those years in the wake of archeological campaigns and frenetic acquisitions, the Vatican collection gathered artifacts preserved in the Urbe (city of Rome) since the time of the Roman Empire. One of the unique characteristics of the collection, situated in Pius IV’s former apartments in the Belvedere, is its territorial identity. A bronze medal and a hieroglyphic inscription, written by Ungarelli that runs the length of the upper molding in the second hall of the Gregorian Egyptian Museum, commemorates its inauguration: “His Majesty, the Supreme Pontiff, the munificent Gregory, sovereign and father of the Christian peoples of all countries, to make the city of Rome shine with his munificence, has collected the great and beautiful ancient Egyptian figures and created this place in the year 1839, in the month of his Coronation, on the VI day of God the Savior of the world (which is also) the day of the coronation of His Majesty, in the ninth year (of his reign).” The Holy Father used his own personal finances from 1838 to acquire all the Egyptian works contained in collections in Rome or that were on the antiquarian market. He was a member of the Cappellari family, a Camaldolese monk, elected Pope in 1831 and founder of three Museums in the Vatican – the Gregorian Estruscan Museum in 1837, the Gregorian Egyptian Museum in 1839 and the Gregoriano Profano Museum in 1844. The strong intuition, sensibility, culture and interest in antiquity of Pope Gregory XVI provided the decisive impulse. Nineteenth century frescoes in the Gregorian Egyptian Museum The scientific publication Description de l'Égypte ( Description of Egypt), edited by about 160 savants (scholars) during the Napoleanic expedition is testimony to this. Egyptomania exploded – a feverish curiosity and desire to know raged among scholars, antiquarians and collectors. In fact, in 1822, studying the stele allowed the Frenchman Jean François Champollion to begin deciphering the enigmatic writing of the ancient Egyptians. in three different scripts (hieroglyphic, Demotic, and Ancient Greek), honors the Pharaoh Ptolemy V Epiphanes and enabled the ancient Nile Civilization, “mute” and shrouded in mystery until then, to “speak”. This granodiorite artefact which contains the text of a decree issued in 196 B.C. The period was launched by the chance discovery of the Rosetta Stone during the Napoleonic campaign in 1799.
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From that point on, what had been matter for "mystery" became science. With the foundation of the Gregorian Egyptian Museum on 16 February 1839, the Vatican played an active role in the consolidation of the international archaeological movement thanks to which the science of Egyptology was born. Barnabite Father Luigi Ungarelli, commissioned by Gregory XVI to set up the new Egyptian Museum in the Vatican, enthusiastically writes to his instructor and friend, Ippolito Rosellini. The latter, an eminent Egyptologist from Pisa, Founder of Italian Egyptology, first professor in the world awarded with a chair in Egyptology, was the Pontiff’s first choice to develop the enterprise, but he had to decline the invitation, proposing the name of his favorite student. “The Pope ordered his Camerlengo not to buy any more Etruscan, Greek or Roman objects, only Egyptian ones.” It is 2 April 1838.