Ancient CyprusAncient Cyprus

Consul / diplomat · Collector · Excavator · Donor

Riccardo Colucci

1814–1873 · Italy

Italian consular official. Excavated at Larnaca (Seiff: excavations 'near Larnaca').

Life and work

  1. 1850
    Appointed vice-consul of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (born Alexandria 1814, of a family of physicians from southern Italy who had emigrated to Egypt at the start of the 19th century; Soldi, summarising Di Paolo, thinks he was probably the youngest son of Ludovico, who settled in Egypt in 1804).

    AlexandriaPaolo 2012Soldi 2025, p. 11

  2. 1868
    Appointed Consul of the Kingdom of Italy in Cyprus.

    CyprusSoldi 2025, p. 11Paolo 2012

  3. 5 May 1869
    Italian Foreign Ministry (MAE) wrote to the Ministry of Public Instruction that Colucci, 'moved by the example of his colleagues of France, England and America', who had gained a very abundant collection of ancient objects from their excavations, meant to seek a firman from the Ottoman authorities to start digs and so enrich the Kingdom's museums.

    RomePaolo 2010

  4. 18 November 1870
    MAE letter says the Porte had authorised Colucci to excavate 'in some localities of that island', finding 'vestiges of the ancient Phoenician civilisation'; he had sent four baskets of ancient 'Phoenician' objects: many terracotta vases, three pieces of rock crystal, a box of asbestos and a skull, 130 pieces in all. A Commission set up by the Minister Cesare Correnti judged this first lot (arrived about the end of 1870) and regretted that the findspot, buildings or tombs, were not stated.

    RomePaolo 2010

  5. 15 February 1871
    A letter of this date speaks of a second shipment of 'Phoenician antiquities and other objects like those previously sent': five cases (perhaps the remaining 114 pieces), with transport bills among the papers. The Rome commission assigned the donation to the Egyptian Museum, Florence, asking that it be shown with donor and provenance.

    FlorencePaolo 2010Soldi 2025, p. 11, p. 12

  6. 21 January 1871
    A note of this date, in Colucci's own private papers (kept by his heirs), seems to indicate a north-eastern area of the island, where Cesnola also worked, as the provenance of part of the collection.

    Paolo 2012

  7. January 1872
    Hosted the German civil engineer Julius Seiff at his residence; Seiff's 1875 travel account says the Italian consul had made several successful excavations near Larnaca, discovering 'Phoenician' tombs, comparing his work with Cesnola's and Lang's. Colucci was by then also German consul.

    CyprusPaolo 2010Paolo 2012

  8. 4 March 1872
    MAE letter forwarded a report by Consul Colucci on the arrival in Cyprus of German scientists planning studies on Cypriot 'Phoenician' antiquities.

    RomePaolo 2010

  9. September 1872
    Transferred from Cyprus to the consulate at Scutari (Albania) at the end of September. He later complained to the foreign minister Visconti-Venosta that Palma di Cesnola (presumably Luigi) might have had a role in his removal.

    ScutariSoldi 2025, p. 11Paolo 2010

  10. 1873
    Died at Ragusa of Dalmatia.

    DubrovnikPaolo 2012

  11. 1873
    The first catalogue of the Egyptian-Etruscan Museum, Florence (Gamurrini), records the Cypriot gift of 1870 as 'a fine sample of vases and sculptures, the profit of the excavations made by Mr Colucci, Italian consul in that island, in searching a temple near Paphos, which he gave to the Florence museum with rare generosity': the first appearance of the Paphos attribution.

    FlorencePaolo 2012

  12. 23 November 1878
    Ernesto Schiaparelli's report to the Royal Commissioner for the Royal Galleries and Museums of Florence (23 November) and his inventory of the Colucci collection (27 November 1878) mention no Paphos provenance.

    FlorencePaolo 2010Paolo 2012, p. 8-9

  13. 1892–1912
    Under L. A. Milani (director of the Royal Museum from 1892) the Colucci material was shown in Room XVIII, and in his 1912 guide Milani describes the 'primitivo saggio di antichità cipriote', pottery and limestone sculpture 'from excavations made around the famous temple of Venus at Paphos', a 'dono' of 'the Italian consul of Cyprus, cav. Riccardo Colucci' (1870), displayed in vitrine IV (compartments A-D).

    FlorenceSoldi 2025, p. 12Paolo 2010

Connections

9 people
Robert Hamilton LangLuigi Palma di CesnolaSilvana Di PaoloSebastiano SoldiErnesto SchiaparelliE. Gautier di ConfiengoG. F. GamurriniLuigi Adriano MilaniJ. SeiffRiccardo Colucci
Sales & giftsDisputesScholarshipColleagues

Sales, gifts & bequests

Disputes & the law

Scholarship

Colleagues & contacts

Objects

  • Colucci donation: 244 objects (Di Paolo, Soldi; 'some 250' in Bettelli and Lo Schiavo; 240 in the Uffizi inventory) dated Early Cypriot to Roman: sculpture nos. 1-78, ceramics nos. 79-244 [sic], glass nos. 225-236, miscellaneous 237-240 (as printed by Soldi); pottery (Geometric and Archaic wares), terracotta and stone sculpture (Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic), Roman glass, a few bronzes, three rock-crystal pieces, a box of asbestos; plus a human skull now in the Anthropological Museum, Florence

    Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Firenze (first held by the Egyptian Museum, Florence)1870–1871Soldi 2025, p. 11, p. 12Paolo 2010Bettelli & Schiavo 2010

Sources

  1. 1.Sebastiano Soldi (2025). “The Italian entomologist Giacomo Cecconi and Cyprus: a step towards the formation of the Cypriot collection in the National Archaeological Museum of Florence”. Empire & Excavation: Critical perspectives on archaeology in British-period Cyprus, 1878-1960, 93-.
  2. 2.W. Gesenius (1837). Scripturae linguaeque Phoeniciae monumenta. Leipzig.
  3. 3.S. Di Paolo (2012). “From Italy to Cyprus and back again. Completed research and ongoing projects”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 42, 325-346.
  4. 4.Silvana Di Paolo (2010). “"...dall'esempio dei suoi colleghi di Francia, Inghilterra e d'America..." ovvero il collezionismo di emulazione: la raccolta Colucci nel quadro dell'archeologia cipriota della seconda metà del XIX secolo”. Researches in Cypriote History and Archaeology, 75-83. Florence, Florence University Press.
  5. 5.S. Di Paolo (2012). “From Italy to Cyprus and back again. Completed research and ongoing projects”. Cahiers du Centre d'Études Chypriotes 42, 325-346.
  6. 6.M. Bettelli, F. Lo Schiavo (2010). “La raccolta del Museo archeologico di Firenze nel quadro della storia del collezionismo di antichità cipriote in Italia”. Researches in Cypriote History and Archaeology, 85-94. Florence University Press.
  7. 7.G. F. Gamurrini (1873). Relazione del Reale museo egizio ed etrusco in Firenze. Florence.
  8. 8.L. A. Milani (1912). Il R. Museo archeologico di Firenze (two volumes). Florence, Ariani.