Luigi Vassalli

Biography

Vassalli was born in 1812 in Milan. In 1828 he enrolled at the Brera Academy and around this period he joined the Mazzinian activism but after a failed conspiracy he was sentenced to death, only to be pardoned but exiled. He moved in several places across Europe and later he traveled to Egypt where he began working for the local government.

In 1848 Vassalli returned to his homeland to join the

Still in 1871, along with Mariette he discovered the mastaba of Nefermaat at Meidum, which is well known for the famous scene commonly referred as the "Meidum geese". Vassalli carefully removed the whole scene from the tomb wall and reassembled it inside the Bulaq Museum. This fact sparked a controversy over a century later, when in a 2015 research the Egyptologist Francesco Tiradritti suggested that the Meidum geese scene is a 19th-century forgery possibly made by Vassalli himself, a claim dismissed by Egyptian authorities.^[3]

After Mariette's death in 1881, Vassalli became Director ad interim until the installation of Gaston Maspero. He retired in 1884 and returned to Milan and then to Rome; he committed suicide there on June 13, 1887. According to his will, all his papers were donated to the city of Milan.^[2]

Significant works

• 1867. I monumenti istorici egizi: il museo e gli scavi d'antichità eseguiti per ordine di S.A. Il vicerè Ismail Pascia. Milano 1867.

References