The Lorena Archive in Prague and the collection from the Tuscan Expedition to Egypt in the Florence Museum

In his letter to the Grand Duke, written on the 29th December 1829 from the Lazaret in Leghorn coming back from Egypt, Ippolito Rosellini gave the sovereign, who had sponsored the Tuscan Expedition, a detailed report of its results, including also the list of the Expedition drawings and the catalogue of the antiquities he brought to Florence. So far only an autograph copy of this letter was known in the “Copialettere” of Rosellini in the Biblioteca Universitaria of Pisa (Ms. BUP 379), but without the announced lists. The original has been recently identified in Prague among the papers of the Asburgo Lorena Family Archive and includes the lists missing in the Pisa copy (Ms. RAT L II f26-45). In these manuscripts, the list of the antiquities brought by Rosellini to the Grand Duke of Tuscany is divided into two sections, one for the objects he bought on the market and the second one for those he acquired through his excavations. This information, crossed with other data from unpublished autograph documents by Rosellini in Pisa, and with the study of antiquities he brought to Florence (today in the Egyptian Museum of this town), provides precious data for the history of the collection and for the possible archaeological context of some of its objects