Last weekend I visited the Egyptian Museum of Florence. Although I live quite near to the chief town of Tuscany, I've never visited it before.
It's located in the centre of Florence, not far from the beautiful cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore and is part of the Archaeological Museum, which is also very interesting as it contains many archaeological finds of the Etruscan civilization.
The museum is the third Egyptian museum of the world in order of importance after those of Cairo, Egypt and Turin, Italy.
The Egyptian Museum was founded in Florence in the years between 1824 and 1828 thanks to the great passion to this civilization by the Grand Duke Leopoldo II di Lorena; he purchased new collections and financed, together with Charles X, King of France, a scientific expedition to Egypt in the years 1828 and 1829. The expedition was directed by Jean François Champollion, the famous scholar and interpreter of hieroglyphics and by Ippolito Rosellini from Pisa, who would soon become the father of Egyptian studies in Italy and a friend and disciple of Champollion.
After the return of the expedition, the numerous objects collected during the expedition and during excavations of archeological sites or purchased by local merchants, were equally divided between Florence and the Louvre.
The museum holds a great collection of sarcophagus, mummies, statuettes, vessels and many other artefacts (more than 140,000 in total) from the ancient Egypt.
If you ever come to Florence, I definitely recommend to visit it, besides the famous Uffizi Museum!
Links:
http://www.museumsinflorence.com/musei/Museum_of_archaeology.html
http://en.firenze-online.com/visit/museo-egizio-127
