Discover the Museum
The Museum
Upon entering the “Collegio dei Nobili”, the Baroque building located in the heart of Turin that houses the Museo Egizio, it will be like taking a journey back in time.
Founded in 1824 by King Carlo Felice di Savoia, it’s the oldest museum in the world entirely devoted to Egyptian antiquities and it preserves more than 40.000 artifacts, 3.000 of these are exhibited chronologically in the 15 rooms arranged on 4 floors.
This is the result of an impressive work of renovation and expansion of the museum that was finally presented to the public in 2015. Moreover, around 11.000 objects are displayed in the so called “Galleries of Material Culture”.
The Museo Egizio of Turin as we know it today is the result of a four-hundred-year-long process, which starts with the first Egyptian antiquities acquired by the House of Savoy in the 17th century.
To discover more about the history of the Museum visit the official website.
Why an Egyptian Museum in Turin?
1563: The Savoy dynasty moved its capital to Turin. Court historians invented an extraordinary genealogy for the new capital, conjecturing that it had Egyptian origins. The bond with Egypt was strengthened when the Dukes of Savoy acquired the Mensa Isiaca, an Egyptising find.
The ties between Turin and Egypt date from long before this museum was founded in 1824.
The story begins in 1563, the year when the Dukes of Savoy moved their capital from Chambery to Turin. The general climate of the period induced the nobility to seek their origins in religion and mythology, so ennobling the foundation of the capital. In 1567, during work on the fortifications of Turin, the base of a statue was discovered dating from Roman times with an inscription in Latin, suggesting that a sanctuary dedicated to Isis once stood on the spot.
This led the court historians Filiberto Pingone (1577) and Emanuele Tesauro (1679) to imagine that the city had Egyptian origins. In this context, probably between 1626 and 1630, the Savoys acquired a collection of antiquities from the Gonzagas of Mantua, outstanding among them the Mensa Isiaca.