DROVETTI, BERNARDINO MICHELE MARIA

(1776–1852)

   French soldier and diplomat of Italian extraction. He was born in Barbania, Piedmont, Italy, on 4 January 1776. When Italy came under French control under Napoleon, he joined the French army, and he was later promoted to French vice consul in Alexandria in 1802, although he did not arrive there until 1803. He became vice consul general in Egypt in 1806 and then consul general in 1811. Drovetti was dismissed in 1814 after the fall of Napoleon, but he remained in Egypt as a private businessman until being reappointed as consul from 1821–1829. He became an avid collector of Egyptian antiquities and financed agents to collect or dig for objects mostly at Saqqara and Thebes. Drovetti has been harshly depicted by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, who saw his men as rivals. His first collection was sold in 1824 and became the foundation for the Turin Egyptian Museum, and his second went to the Louvre Museum in 1827, while his third was acquired by the Berlin Egyptian Museum in 1836. He died in Turin, Italy, on 9 March 1852.