Memorie Della Accademia Delle Scienze Di Torino

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Memorie Della Accademia Delle Scienze Di Torino Memorie della Accademia delle Scienze di Torino Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche Serie V, Volume 43, 2019 © 2019 ACCADEMIA DELLE S CIENZE DI T ORINO Via Accademia delle Scienze, 6 10123 Torino, Italia Uffi ci : Via Maria Vittoria, 3 10123 Torino, Italia Tel. +39-011-562.00.47; Fax +39-011-53.26.19 Tutti i saggi che appaiono nelle «Memorie dell’Acca- demia delle Scienze di Torino» sono disponibili in rete ad accesso aperto e sono valutati da referees anonimi attraverso un sistema di peer review . L’Accademia vende direttamente le proprie pubblicazioni. Per acquistare fascicoli scrivere a: [email protected] Per contattare la Redazione rivolgersi a: [email protected] I lettori che desiderino informarsi sulle pubblicazioni e sull’insieme delle attività dell’Accademia delle Scienze possono consultare il sito www.accademiadellescienze.it In copertina: ricostruzione ipotetica del primo allesti- mento della collezione Drovetti nell’atrio del Palazzo del Collegio dei Nobili nel 1824 (disegno a china e acquerel- lo di L. Donatelli, 2019). © Foto di Nicola Dell’Aquila e Federico Taverni/Museo Egizio. È vietata ogni riproduzione o duplicazione con qual- siasi mezzo delle immagini riprodotte nella presente memoria. ISSN: 1120-1622 ISBN: 978-88-99471-19-4 ALLE ORIGINI DELL ’EGITTOLOGIA E DEL PRIMO M USEO E GIZIO DELLA S TORIA TORINO 1820-1832 In memoriam Silvio Curto, nel centenario della nascita PARTE PRIMA TOPOGRAFIA DROVETTIANA Bernadin Drovetti ritratto da Franz Christian Gau. «Je vous ai demandé [...] la permission de mettre Votre portrait à la tête de mon ouvrage, nous éspérons tous que Vous ne me refuserez pas le plaisir de Vous rendre ce qui Vous est dû sous touts raports» (lettera di F.Ch. Gau a B. Drovetti, scritta da Colonia il 10 dicembre 1820, conservata presso l’Archivio dell’Accademia delle Scienze di Torino; il ritratto si trova invece negli archivi di Parigi). Acc. Sc. Torino Memorie Sc. Mor. 43 (2019), 7-26, 1 ritr., 1 c. geogr. ARCHEOLOGIA, EPIGRAFIA, NUMISMATICA Riscoperta e scavi delle antichità in Egitto Memoria del Socio nazionale ALESSANDRO ROCCATI * presentata nell’adunanza del 19 giugno 2018 e approvata nell’adunanza del 13 novembre 2018 Riassunto. L’Egitto è da sempre un paese di tesori nascosti e (in parte) riscoperti. Una ricerca mirata al recupero di cimeli antichi si sviluppò già durante l’impero romano, e fu ripresa con il Rinascimento. Soprattutto la Spedizione napoleonica in Egitto impresse un’accelerazione alla curiosità per le antichità faraoniche portan- do ad un incessante saccheggio, non ostante la proclamazione di leggi sempre più restrittive per la conservazione del patrimonio dopo il mezzo dell’Ottocento. Da al- lora gli studi condotti sulle raccolte archeologiche da parte di istituzioni scientifi che che ne avevano assunto il patrocinio hanno aperto indagini anche sull’origine delle medesime. Alla mancanza di notizie dirette si riesce in parte a rimediare attraverso vari espedienti come mostra questo saggio. PAROLE CHIAVE : Museo Egizio di Torino; Luxor (Tebe); Bernardino Drovetti; Cercatori di tesori; Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. Abstract. Egypt has always been a land of hidden treasures, only a part of which has been subsequently retrieved. A search aiming at the recovery of ancient artifacts de- veloped already during the Roman empire, and was resumed since the Renaissance. Napoleon’s Expedition to Egypt fostered a growing curiosity for the Pharaonic an- tiquities, starting a steady looting, in spite of more and more restrictive laws for the protection of heritage after the middle of the 19th century. Thereafter the studies on the archaeological collections by scholarly institutions in charge of them led to enquiries also related to the provenance of their contents. The dearth of satisfactory information can partly be made up through a variety of means to be dealt with in the present essay. KEYWORDS: Turin Egyptian Museum; Luxor (Thebes); Bernardino Drovetti; Treasure hunters; Academy of Sciences in Turin. 1. Bernardino Drovetti e Carlo Vidua: due facce della stessa medaglia Quando ebbe inizio l’avventura dell’egittologia la scena era divisa tra due grandi e antichi imperi: quello ottomano e quello austroungarico, che condi- zionavano anche le potenze al loro esterno. In Piemonte due personaggi di origini e indole diverse furono parallelamente indirizzati verso la stessa meta, * Professore emerito, già ordinario di Egittologia nell’Università di Torino. 8 Alessandro Roccati e uno dei loro riferimenti fu la fi gura di Napoleone, che gli diede la consa- pevolezza di un possibile rinnovamento. Drovetti era a Marengo il 14 giugno 1800, quando l’intervento del generale Desaix capovolse l’esito della battaglia dei Francesi contro gli Austriaci, dando origine al mito di Napoleone. Vidua era a Parigi nel 1814, quando con l’abdicazione fi nì la leggenda di Napoleone. Nominato nel 1811 Console Generale di Francia ad Alessandria per i suoi meriti, dopo la caduta di Napoleone (1815) Drovetti si trattenne privatamen- te in Egitto (dove risiedeva dal 1803, e riprese la carica di console dal 1821 al 1829), e si mise a fare incetta di antichità, inaugurando tra i primi l’era degli scavi (non ancora archeologici). Vidua vi soggiornò meno di un anno (1820), nel corso di un ampio viaggio attorno all’impero austroungarico, pas- sando dalla Scandinavia alla Lapponia alla Russia, dove fu presentato allo zar Alessandro; per poi tornare a sud fi no al Mediterraneo, percorrendo gran par- te dell’impero ottomano, dove un posto di rilievo spetta all’Egitto, raggiunto alla fi ne del 1819. Egli vide solo alcune delle antichità che Drovetti aveva raccolto non ancora trasferite in Italia, ma rimase immediatamente soggiogato dall’abbondanza e dall’imponenza di memorie lasciate dalla civiltà faraonica, prive allora di ogni protezione. Anche se le «anticaglie» non costituivano una priorità tra le incombenze delle istituzioni, nel fervore delle scoperte in Italia, a Pompei e in Etruria, e nel risveglio degli studi orientalistici, i geroglifi ci eran tornati d’attualità dopo la Spedizione napoleonica in Egitto, e la scoperta nel 1799, della Pietra di Rosetta con la sua iscrizione trilingue. I geroglifi ci costituivano un indi- zio indubitabile dell’antichità dei monumenti che li riportavano, ma la loro comprensione appariva egualmente improbabile e remota, e quello che si sa- peva della civiltà faraonica era desunto dagli autori classici e dalla Bibbia. Nondimeno l’entusiasmo e l’autorevolezza di Vidua, colto e ricco aristocra- tico impressionato dalla visione inattesa di monumenti spettacolari in Egitto, accesero il desiderio per l’acquisto di una collezione straordinaria, radunata, dopo tutto, da un altro piemontese. La proposta fu immediatamente accolta dallo Stato sabaudo nonostante alcuni contrattempi. Giunti a Torino, i cimeli furono sistemati nel palazzo del Collegio dei Nobili (1823-1824), e affi dati naturalmente alla cura di studiosi consociati nell’adiacente Accademia delle Scienze, che si trovarono all’improvviso ad affrontare un imponente quanto indecifrato archivio di memorie. In soccorso giunse da fuori un terzo personaggio la cui vita diede un sen- so compiuto alle altre due, Jean-François Champollion, che divenne con il fratello socio dell’Accademia al principio del 1825, nella sezione morale che era stata aggiunta nel 1801. Egli avrebbe potuto trovare anche altrove materia per la verifi ca del deciframento delle scritture dell’Egitto faraonico che era Riscoperta e scavi delle antichità in Egitto 9 giunto ad una fase decisiva alla fi ne del 1822; tuttavia la scelta di Champollion cadde su Torino, dove trovò disponibilità ad accoglierlo. Qui l’orientalismo aveva avuto un capostipite nell’abate Tommaso Valperga di Caluso, deceduto nel 1815, alla cui scuola s’era formato uno studioso della statura di Amedeo Peyron. La diffi coltà principale, una volta acquisita una chiave per il deciframento con l’ausilio di una lunga iscrizione plurilingue, stava nella penuria di materiali per la verifi ca dei risultati. I testi paralleli, peraltro non integri, contenuti nella Pietra di Rosetta non son di natura tale da facilitare il confronto. Del resto già a Torino si conservava un documento, la Mensa isiaca, trasferita dall’Archivio di Corte all’Università nel 1775, che aveva suscitato mere illusioni per la com- prensione dei geroglifi ci. Altri materiali presenti in Europa, quali gli obelischi, erano pochi e sparsi, e la ricerca di nuovi in Egitto si scontrava con gli alti co- sti specialmente di trasporto che pochi, come Drovetti, potevano assumersi. Anche nell’impero austroungarico non mancava l’attenzione per l’Egitto e le antichità faraoniche, ma prevalsero dapprima false piste per il decifra- mento e successivamente un generale scetticismo nei confronti dei complicati progressi dello Champollion. Eccellenti facsimili di libri funerari, senza ad- dentrarsi nel contenuto (per giunta scritto in ieratico, una grafi a non fi gura- ta), erano stati riprodotti a stampa: a Trieste il papiro Fontana nel 1822 dal futuro barone Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, che combatté in Egitto contro Napoleone e fu pure in disaccordo con Metternich, diventando socio dell’Ac- cademia delle Scienze di Torino nel 1826; a Cracovia in quello stesso anno da Joseph Senkowski il papiro eponimo, consistente in un rotolo di formato quasi tascabile, in stato perfetto di conservazione, poi donato alla città. Il castello di Königswarth in Boemia ospitava dal 1828 la celeberrima Stela di Metternich, ora vanto del Metropolitan Museum di New York. Per converso in Germania prevalse a lungo il rifi uto delle spiegazioni tentate dallo Champollion per pe- netrare nella scrittura egizia, ovvero la preferenza per un’alternativa più sem- plice (poi dimostratasi infondata) sostenuta da Friedrich Spohn, professore a Lipsia. Tale pervicace opposizione fu impersonata da Gustav Seyffarth, il quale pure venne a Torino dopo la partenza dello Champollion. In quegli stes- si anni Hegel, nelle sue lezioni sulla Filosofi a della Storia , negava, invocando la testimonianza silente di Erodoto, che mai gli antichi Egizi avessero posseduto una letteratura, sminuendo indubbiamente l’aspettativa per un eventuale suc- cesso.
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