Italy comes to the aid of Alexandria
Funds and expertise from Italy mean the restoration of the Egyptian city’s Greco-Roman Museum will resume after a long delay.
After being closed for five years, a museum in Alexandria housing the world’s most extensive collection of Greco-Roman art will be renovated and is due to reopen within 18 months, thanks to Italian support.
The Greco-Roman Museum closed in 2008 for conservation work on its 19th-century building and its library. However, a lack of money and the problems caused by the 2011 revolution
The Art Newspaper
December 18, 2013
© Greco-Roman Museum
meant that although work began, it was put on hold. In late October, Mohamed Ibrahim, Egypt’s head of antiquities, signed a memorandum of agreement with Italy’s ambassador to Egypt, Maurizio Massari, to restart restoration work on the museum. The Egyptian institution has a long history of Italian patronage; its first director, Giuseppe Botti, was Italian, as were successive directors until the 1952 Egyptian revolution.