CURE out and about with Markus Messling
WHEN
WHERE
University of Pisa & Online
LANGUAGE
ENGLISH
PROGRAMME
At the invitation of Gianluca Miniaci, professor of Egyptology at the University of Pisa and honorary research associate at University College London, CURE director Markus Messling will deliver a lecture on 11 March 2026 at the Department of Civilisations and Forms of Knowledge at the University of Pisa. The lecture “On Cultural Death: Champollion’s Pisan Revelations” forms part of a series of events marking the first Egyptological lecture delivered two hundred years ago by Ippolito Rosellini at the University of Pisa. Pisan Egyptology is the oldest in the world.
Professor Messling will present his recently published book Kulturtod und Reparation: Der Fall Champollion (Matthes & Seitz Berlin), in which the correspondence between Jean-François Champollion, the decipherer of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the Pisan scholar and writer Angelia Palli plays a central role. Champollion was deeply shaped by encounters with the social devastation wrought by colonialism, both in Paris, where he met members of the Osage Nation, and during the Tuscan expedition to Egypt with Ippolito Rosellini from 1827 to 1829. These experiences were closely connected to the universalistic global awareness that made his rise to prominence possible. Champollion articulated his doubts about this world-consciousness in a seminal letter addressed to his beloved “Zelmire” (Angelica Palli). Palli, the first woman within this circle, had met Champollion at the Accademia Labronica in Livorno, where in 1826 she improvised an ode to the decipherer. Champollion’s doubts and deeds raise questions that Markus Messling explores in his reflection on the foundations of contemporary Europe.
