As early as the beginning of the 1900s Egypt had a special appeal to Europeans. This short collection looks at the country with a particular point of view: celebrating Italy’s presence there, especially its missionaries, and their alleged civilizing function. The first, long panoramic shot shows us the Italian archeological campsite in Gebelein. The following footage includes: a group of pupils from Italian Franciscan schools walking among the ruins of Karnak and Luxor, young girls in the courtyard and garden of a girls’ boarding school, a group of camels swimming across a river, a fortress on the sea, and a sandy road crossing crop fields (images that still need to be indentified).

A letter dated 1911 found in Egyptologist Ernesto Schiapparelli’s correspondence says that the filming of the archeological site was done by a priest, Father Marzano. Schiapparelli was the longtime director of the Museo Egizio in Turin as well as a founder of ASMI (Associazione Nazionale per il Soccorso dei Missionari Italiani), an association providing support to Italian missionaries. Egyptologists and Italian missionaries were closely connected: archeological missions usually relied on the colleges run by missionaries for logistics. One hypothesis is that these rare images are what remain of filming done for publicizing Italian missionary work abroad for the world fair held in Turin in 1911.

Reconstructed by the Museo Nazionale del Cinema of Turin with the collaboration of the Museo Egizio of Turin using uncut fragments of negative and positive nitrate film belonging to the Museo del Cinema’s ‘Fondo Missioni’.

Stella Dagna