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Egypt Returns to Mann EGYPT RETURNS TO MANN ( The Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli ) by Lucy Gordan-Rastelli Photos Courtesy the MANN he palace which houses the Museo Archeologico Nazion- ale di Napoli (The Naples National Archaeological Muse- um) — known by its abbreviation MANN — was built in 1585 as a cavalry barracks. It’s located at the western edge of the neighborhood called “Quartieri Spagnoli” (Spanish Quarters), because in the Sixteenth Century the Spanish oc - T cupied and ruled Naples. In those days the building was just outside the city walls, in an area (St. Teresa) that had once been one of the many ancient Greek cemeteries of Neapolis . Between 1612 and 1615, the Viceroy Pedro Fer - nández de Castro (1560-1622) had the palace transformed into the University of Naples; he gave the job of restruc - turing and enlarging the building to the highly respected architect/engineer Giulio Cesare Fontana. Then in 1777 King Ferdinand IV (1751-1825) transferred the Univer - sity to the Jesuit convent and started to make this palace the Museo Ercolanese (of the artifacts from the early ex - Above, One of the new state-of-the-art instal - cavations of Pompeii and Herculaneum), the Collezione lations of the MANN Farnese (the Farnese painting collection), the library, the Egyptian collection. 59 Kmt School of Art and the laboratories for art restoration — although the idea of having a single museum devoted to archaeology had been that of his father, Charles III (1716- 1788). Then in 1816 Ferdinand established the Real Museo Borbonico (the Royal Bour- bon Museum). With the unification of Italy in 1860, the Museum building and all its contents became the property of the Italian government and its name was changed again to Museo Nazionale. In 1920, 335 years after its initial construction, its final rooms were added. Between 1929 and 1932, the Muse- um was enlarged to the north with the addi - tion of a new wing. In 1925 the library was moved to Palazzo Reale di Napoli (the Roy- al Palace in Naples); and in 1957 the paint - ing galleries went to the Royal Palace of Capodimonte, so from then on the contents of the Museum have been devoted entirely to archaeology. Today, with its 3,000,000 artifacts , MANN is one of the world’s most important classi - cal-archaeology museums and certainly the most important in Italy. It hous es extensive collections of Greek and Roman antiquities. Their core is from the Far nese collection, which includes the already-mentioned large Roman copies of Greek marble statues and numerous engraved gems, among them the Farnese Cup, (a Ptolemaic bowl made of sardonyx agate and the most famous piece in the “Treasure of the Magnificent,” or gem s collected by Cosimo de Medici and Lor- enzo the Magnificent in the Fifteenth Cen - tury), as well as Roman bronzes, mosaics, and frescoes and erotica (still kept in a lock- ed section, where visitors under the age of fourteen must be accompanied by an adult), all from the excavations of Pompei, Her cu - laneum, Stabiae and Boscoreale. Also of particular note here are the Herculaneum pa- pyri, carbonized by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, and found during early excavations in the Villa of the Papyri in 1752. Also noteworthy is MANN’s Egyp- tian collection, which I visited on Decem - ber 16th, 2016. Dottoressa Valeria Sampao- lo, chief curator of all the collections at MANN, graciously arranged for the Egyp - tologist Dottoressa Rita Di Mar ia to accom - pany me on my tour. A Neapolitan interest- ed in archaeology since childhood, espe - cially after seeing the movie “Atlantis, The One of the oldest objects in the MANN Egyptian collection is a small granite sta- tue today called “Dama di Napoli” (“Lady of Naples”), which dates to the beginning of the 3rd Dynasty (2686-2613 BC). It orig- inally was in the Borgia collection & prob - ably was found at Sakkara. Lost Continent,” Dr. Maria, who had origi - nally wanted to be an astronaut, studied Egyptology at the University of Naples “L’Orientale.” “My special interest is Pre - dynastic and Dynastic Egypt and its rela - tionship with Mesopotamia of the time,” Dr. Di Maria told me. “I excavated at the Uni - versity of Naples’s dig at Naqada. At the Mu- seum I’m in charge of public relations and communications. I organize conferences, guided tours and all education al ac tivities, but also write entries for the perman ent dis - plays and temporary exhibitions, as well as for exhibition catalogues.” With its 2,500 artifacts — some 2,250 of which are on display 1 — MANN houses the largest collection of Egyptian antiquities in Italy after Turin (which has more than 30,000), Florence (some 15,000) and Bologna (over 4,000). “All these arti - facts except some Egyp tian or Egyptianizing pieces of the Roman period found in exca - vations carried out in the time of the Bour - bon kings of Naples — were acquired bet- ween 1803 and 1917 from private collec - tors. They hence reflect different tastes and times, and were put together under different circumstances,” Dr. Di Maria told me. Thus this collection is of great im portance for the history of collecting as well as for the arti - facts it contains. What makes the MANN collection different from all Egyptian collections outside of Egypt is that it includes objects made there, but which also were in use in Herculaneum and Pompeii and other sites in Campania near Naples when Vesuvius erupt ed. These artifacts were found during the early Bour - bon excavations at these sites in the second half of the Eighteenth Century, the same pe - riod of time as the gradual trans fer of the Farnese collections from Rome and, most importantly of all, before Napoleon’s expe - dition to Egypt (1798-99). Also unearthed in Pompeii be - tween 1764 and 1766 was the Temple of Isis, made famous by travelers on the Grand Tour in the decade 1770-1780. 2 As the collec - tion’s guide recounts: “In Italy and in Eu - rope the Temple became a source of inspir- ation for the earliest forms of Egyptomania, long before the rediscovery of the world of the Pharaohs after the Napoleonic expedi - tion….” An Egyptomania before the official Centerpiece of the MANN Egyptian col - lection, the 26th Dynasty naos statue of Priest of Horus Uahlibramerinet is 97.5 cm. h. & carved in black basalt (Inv. 1068). Part of the Farnese collection, it was the first Egyptian antiquity to enter the Mu - seum’s collection. 61 Kmt The monument of Amenemone (Inv. 1069) came to MANN as part of the Borgia col - lection. Made of black granite, it is 4.5 cm h., 81.5 cm w. & 36.8 cm d. It dates to the Egyptian artifacts on loan to us was: ‘Egypt Egyptian artifacts, most ly catalogued in the 19th Dynasty, with a Luxor provenance. Naples: Oriental Cults in Campania’, from Borgia collection — MANN’s first-to-ar - post-Napoleonic one! June 29 to October 8th, the same day our rive large assemblage — mistakenly as Another major difference from permanent collection reopened. In actual Egyptian. There is also a gigantic photo - other Egyptian collections is the fact that fact it’s not a temporary exhibition because graph of a painting by Paolo Vetri (1875) the majority of its ancient Egyptian artifacts it has become part of our permanent dis - showing two women visiting the then-early came to MANN not as single objects, but as play.” mummy room, designed by Giuseppe Fior- parts of already established collections, in elli between 1864 and 1866. The display particular two: the Borgiana and the Drosso Closed for over six years because of poor case shows how Naples’ Egyptian artifacts Picchianti. For the most part they were pur - ventilation, the MANN Egyptian collection were displayed during Bourbon times, and chased and not donated, even though the reopened after fifteen months of restoration the painting how they were displayed just most recent, a scarab, was a gift by other - in the same rooms where it has been since after the unification of Italy. The other five wise unknown Alfio Scaramella, in 1917. 1864, with a state-of-the-art layout, at a cost downstairs-rooms concern “The Pharaoh,” “Although our collection owes its of €2,200,0000, on October 8, 2016, in “The Tomb and Funerary Artifacts,” “Mum - fame to two major collections and has been eight rooms. One with five plaster casts of mification,” “Religion and Magic,” and more or less stagnant since 1917,” said Di ancient Egyptian monuments is on MANN’s “Writing, The Arts and Professions,” with a Maria, “we do lend our artifacts to tempo - ground floor and the others on the floor be- section here devoted to Egyptian artifacts rary exhibitions elsewhere and we host tem - low. The artifacts, which represent every era found in the Naples area. porary exhibitions which include our Egyp- of ancient Egypt, from Early Dynastic to the The Farnese collections of ancient tian artifacts as well as those on loan from Byzantine (3000 BC-640 AD), are display- sculpture and paintings were moved from other museums. The most-recent exhi bitions ed in chronological order by theme. 3 The Rome to Naples, gradually, during the last to which we loaned artifacts include: ‘The first two downstairs-rooms explain the his - decades of the 1700s and the first of the Nile in Pompeii: Visions of Egypt in the Ro- tory of Naples’ collection and the history of 1800s. Its relocation took such a long time man World’, from March 5-Septem ber 4, collecting Egyptian antiquities, plus how Opposite, Also from the Borgia collection 2016, at the Egyptian Museum in Tur in; and the perception of ancient Egypt has chang- is a limestone sculptor’s model ( Inv.
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