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Amalia Sola Nizzoli is known today for her memoirs: Memorie sull'Egitto; e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem, scritte durante il suo soggiorno in quel paese (1819-1828), [Memories of Egypt; and Particularly Regarding the Customs of Oriental Women and Harems, Written during the Author's Stay in that Country (1819-1828)], one of the few instances of nineteenth-century travel writing by a woman in Italian in the years preceding the Risorgimento. Chronicling approximately a decade spent in Egypt as the wife of a diplomat, her memoirs, which are her sole published work, vividly describe her experience abroad. However, Nizzoli interests contemporary scholars principally for her memoirs' response to the works of her male European peers about their travels to the Orient. Rendering her perspective noteworthy are her gender and the complications of her position: an Italian-speaking Austrian subject, Tuscan and Piedmontese by birth, her homeland, the "Bel Paese"--not yet Italy--was a destination of other Europeans in the Grand Tour, much like the Orient itself.^[1] Rather than being a tourist, Amalia Sola Nizzoli belongs to a significant category of women whose voyages and foreign residency were the result of family relocation or husbands' careers.^[2] Due to her husband's antiquarianism, she also participated to a limited extent in the nascent field of Egyptology.^[3]

European interest in Egypt had been growing since the Napoleonic expeditions of the late eighteenth century and the 1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone, still being deciphered in the years of Amalia's overseas residence by Jean-François Champollion and Thomas Young.^[4] The importance of Italian figures for the development of Egyptology in the first half of the nineteenth century was such that Champollion once quipped that the road to Memphis passed through Turin, due to the vast collection held by Turin's Museo Egizio in the 1820s.^[5] Champollion himself would in fact later assess a collection amassed by Amalia's husband, whom he met in 1824.^[6] Despite this distinct extra-peninsular presence, the corpus of Italian travel writing in this period seems to be smaller than that of other European nations, perhaps due to the heterogeneous and slippery nature of what constitutes "Italian" in the early Ottocento.^[7]

Italian Travel Writing and Gender
If travel writing as a genre has historically lacked a central place in the Italian literary canon due to the unstable definition of Italy and "italianità," or "Italian-ness," the home from which the traveller ventures forth, the theme of travel itself, as well as the related themes of exile and pilgrimage, has played a significant role, with travel often connoted as secular and commercial, exile and pilgrimage as political and religious.^[8] However, as with other genres in the Italian canon, travel writing by women has often been overlooked or has languished in obscurity, with only a few figures from the Ottocento, such as Cristina Trivulzio di Belgioioso and Amalia Sola Nizzoli, widely recognized today.^[9]

Nizzoli's writing moves among questions of "italianità" and gender. First, as she explores foreign lands, she inevitably refers back to the decentered and multiple Italian places she calls home;^[10] and second, given travel's traditionally masculine rhetoric of domination, penetration, appropriation, as well as the ubiquity of such sexualized Orientalist tropes as the harem, she must address and interpret her status as a female observer and author.^[11] As the title of her memoirs suggests, Amalia finds in her sex the justification for her address of (foreign) subjects already treated by male travellers. Nonetheless, indicating the difficulties faced by women voyagers taking up the pen, she prefaces her work with an excusatio which underscores the modesty of her undertaking, its benefit for her fellow "donna italiana," "Italian woman," her inchoate intended audience, and her memoirs' birth out of the urging of others, specifically, learned men.^[12] Nineteenth-century references to her work also tend to focus on the influence of such men upon her text, often citing as a key feature her reprinting of a letter written to her and her husband by Giambattista Brocchi.^[13] Nizzoli writes, Io vi prego, benevoli lettori, a non giudicare la riunione di queste note come un'opera su quel classico suolo. Tanti uomini d'ingegno scrissero finora sull'Egitto, che assurda ed anche ridicola sarebbe soltanto l'idea di collocarmi fra essi. No, questo non fu mai il mio scopo: sempre incerta e timorosa sul partito da prendere, se alfine mi arresi alle ripetute insinuazioni di dare alla luce queste Memorie, non fu che colla mira di far conoscere, come donna italiana, alle mie concittadine i costumi e le usanze da me esaminati, aneddoti ed avventure o non troppo noti, o grandemente travisati.Io vi prego, benevoli lettori, a non giudicare la riunione di queste note come un'opera su quel classico suolo. Tanti uomini d'ingegno scrissero finora sull'Egitto, che assurda ed anche ridicola sarebbe soltanto l'idea di collocarmi fra essi. No, questo non fu mai il mio scopo: sempre incerta e timorosa sul partito da prendere, se alfine mi arresi alle ripetute insinuazioni di dare alla luce queste Memorie, non fu che colla mira di far conoscere, come donna italiana, alle mie concittadine i costumi e le usanze da me esaminati, aneddoti ed avventure o non troppo noti, o grandemente travisati.

I beg you, kind readers, to not judge the collection of these notes as a work treading that classic ground. So many men of genius have hitherto written about Egypt, that the idea of setting myself among them would be absurd even ridiculous. No, such was never my intention: always uncertain and timorous of which part to assume, if at last I surrendered to the repeated insinuations to deliver these Memories, it was only with the aim of making known, as an Italian woman, to my compatriots, the habits and customs by me studied, the anecdotes and adventures either little known or greatly distorted.^[14]

Though the title of her memoirs hints at titillation, Nizzoli in fact stresses the ways in which her gender and her knowledge of Arabic enable her to access feminine experiences and domestic spaces typically for15bidden to foreign men, occasionally mildly correcting Orientalist stereotypes.^[15] However, she imitates her male peers in her recounting of the strange and exotic, describing the harem, the Turkish bath, bazaars, and belly dancing from her privileged perspective as the European spouse of a diplomat.^[16] Her memoirs end somewhat abruptly in August 1835, with the promise to describe her new life in Zante, Greece, in a future work which she was never to write: "Tutto ciò che riguarda il mio arrivo, il soggiorno, gli usi, costumi ed il clima di quest'isola formerà il soggetto di una separata appendice a queste mie Memorie." ("Everything regarding my arrival, my stay, the habits, customs and climate of this island will constitute the subject of a separate appendix to these Memories of mine.")^[17]

Early years
Amalia was probably born in Tuscany, possibly in Florence,^[18] in 1806 to Piedmontese parents who had relocated from Turin due to France's military ventures in the peninsula.^[19] Her mother, surname Marucchi, was from Moncalieri, a hilltop Piedmontese town south of Turin proper, married one Sola or Solla, a physician from Turin.^[20] Amalia seems to have attended a girls' school in Tuscany, although which one is not known; and had one sibling, a sister named Fanny.^[21] However, when the family was on the point of returning to Piedmont, Amalia's maternal uncle, Filiberto or Filippo Marucchi, the private physician to the Defterdar Bey, head bookkeeper to Mohammed Ali, pasha of Egypt, invited the family to join him in Egypt. Thus Amalia's residence in Egypt was rather more accidental than deliberate.

Egypt, 1818-1828
A year after the family's arrival, the adolescent Amalia, having previously rejected an older suitor named Paolo D'Andrea,^[22] consented to an arranged marriage with the Modenese Giuseppe Nizzoli, a career diplomat.^[23] Giuseppe Nizzoli had been among the Austrian vice-consul's party that greeted the Sola family upon their disembarking in Alexandria in November 1818. The couple was married by proxy in the Catholic church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Greater Cairo in January 1820, with a friend, Francesco Rossi, in Giuseppe's stead, and the Austrian vice-consul among the witnesses.^[24] After the marriage was performed, Amalia resided in Cairo with her new husband who, as the chancellor of the Austrian consulate, was posted first to Cairo and later to Alexandria in the years from 1814 to 1828.^[25] In these years Amalia gave birth to two daughters, Maria Elisa Adelaide^[26] and Luigia Antonietta.^[27]

Amalia would adapt ably to her new surroundings, mastering Arabic and frequenting the society of her Egyptian and European peers, interactions that supply the bulk of her recollections. Among the most memorable are her visits to the harems of the Defterdar Bey and of the Turkish general Abdin Bey.^[28] Her sojourn in Egypt was punctuated with visits to Italy to sell Giuseppe's collections of Egyptian antiquities.^[29] Memorable as well is the young Amalia's temporary oversight of her husband's archaeological excavations at Saqqara (Saccarah in Nizzoli's text) in 1825.^[30]

Italy and Zante, 1828-1835
After a diplomatic contretemps which caused Giuseppe Nizzoli to lose his post,^[31] Amalia departed with their daughters for Italy. The disastrous journey included an attack by pirates and the death of their second daughter onboard during the stormy sea-crossing.^[32] Amalia was forced to spend a year in Smyrna separated from her husband, before finally rejoining him in Trieste in 1829. The Nizzoli family would pass nearly seven years waiting and petitioning for Giuseppe to be reassigned, a difficult and even penurious period mostly spent in Milan, with Giuseppe making various trips to Vienna to revive his stalled diplomatic career and collect back-pay.^[33] In 1835, Giuseppe was assigned to Zante, Greece, as the vice-consul and the family relocated in August 1835 to Zante, where they continued to struggle financially.^[34]

From manuscript to print
In 1840, when Amalia and Giuseppe Nizzoli met the marquis Francesco Cusani (1802-1879), a Milanese literato then travelling through Greece, she therefore had a clear incentive to publish her recollections, already committed to paper, as he suggested.^[35] Her preface to her memoirs in fact is dated August 27, 1840, Zante; and her memoirs, as noted above, conclude with the promise of a future description of her life in Greece. Giuseppe Nizzoli would also take up the pen while in Zante, writing a treatise on the pyramids, which he would continue to polish into the final years of his life. Published after Amalia's memoirs, his treatise occasionally refers to his wife and contains passages that appear to borrow heavily from her memoirs.^[36]

Cusani, who wrote an introduction to the memoirs, brought the manuscript to Milan, where it was published in March 1841 by the Pirotta editorial house.^[37] Two letters sent from Zante by Amalia to Cusani, dated February 11, 1841, and August 27, 1841, are extant and comprise Amalia's last known writing.^[38] The memoirs seem to have enjoyed enough success to merit review in at least one contemporary periodical published in peninsular Italy^[39] and inclusion in nineteenth-century works cataloging notable Italians.^[40] On May 23, 1842, the president of the Royal Geographical Society of London mentioned the memoirs in his annual address, describing them as "a small ethnographic work" whose author was "a learned Tuscan lady."^[41] Although the precise date of her death is unknown, Amalia Sola Nizzoli most likely died between 1841 and 1849, when Giuseppe remarried.^[42]

For further reference
Amalia Sola Nizzoli's memoirs can be read directly by readers with a knowledge of Italian; the 1996 edition is generally preferred due to the errors in the 2002 edition edited by Mercedes Arriaga.

• Arriaga, Mercedes, ed. Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente su i costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo soggiorno in quel paese, 1819-1828. Bari: Mario Adda, 2002.
• Pernigotti, Sergio, and Amalia Nizzoli, eds. Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828). Napoli: Edizioni dell'Elleboro, 1996.
• An excerpt of the memoirs in the original Italian can be found in:
  Cappuccio, Carmelo, and Gaetano Trombatore. Memorialisti dell'Ottocento. La letteratura italiana; storia e testi 3 vols. Milano: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1972.
• Scattered passages in the original Italian are quoted in:
  Augry-Merlino, Muriel, and Enrica Leospo. Viaggio in Egitto: racconti di donne dell'Ottocento = Voyage en Egypte, récits de femmes du XIXème siècle. Turin: Centre Culturel Françl;ais de Turin, Museo Egizio di Torino, Istituto Italiano per la Civiltà Egizia, Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerche sul "Viaggio in Italia", 1998.

There are currently two websites with information about Amalia Nizzoli. The Università degli Studi di Padova, under the direction of Patrizia Zambon, Dipartimento di Italianistica hosts: http://www.maldura.unipd.it/italianistica/ALI/sola.html

The Universidad de Sevilla, under the direction of Mercedes Arriaga Flórez, hosts: http://www.escritorasypensadoras.com/fichatecnica.php/164

Giuseppe Nizzoli's writings:

• Nizzoli, Giuseppe. Memoria sopra di un cubito marmoreo della raccolta di monumenti Egizj ora esistente in Firenze, di proprieta del signor Nizzoli cancelliere dell'I.R. consolato Austriaco in Egitto. Milan: R. Istituto lombardo di scienze e lettere, 1824.
• ---. Catalogo dettagliato della Raccolta di Antichità Egizie riunite da Giuseppe Nizzoli, Cancelliere del Cons. Gen. D'Austria in Egitto dopo quella del 1824, dal medesimo ceduta all'I. e R. Galleria di Firenze per la munificenza di S.A.I. e R. Leopoldo II. Gran Duca di Toscana. Alessandria d'Egitto, 1827.
• ---. Le Piramidi d'Egitto: Osservazioni di Giuseppe de Nizzoli. In Relazione ad un Articolo inseritto nell'Appendice dell'Osservatore triestino No. 61. - 1848. 2. Edizione. Parigi: Stamperia di J. Claye, 1858.

Francesco Cusani's travel writing from the journey in which he met Amalia and Giuseppe Nizzoli:
Cusani, Francesco. La Dalmazia, le Isole Jonie e la Grecia (visitate nel 1840); memorie storico-statistiche. 2 vols. Milano: Pirotta, 1846-1847.

Works Cited

• Augry-Merlino, Muriel, and Enrica Leospo. Viaggio in Egitto: racconti di donne dell'Ottocento = Voyage en Egypte, Récits de femmes du XIXème siècle. Turin: Centre Culturel Françl;ais de Turin, Museo Egizio di Torino, Istituto Italiano per la Civiltà Egizia, Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerche sul "Viaggio in Italia", 1998.
• Cachey, Theodore J. "An Italian Literary History of Travel." Annali d'Italianistica 14 (1996): 55-64.
• Cappuccio, Carmelo, and Gaetano Trombatore. Memorialisti dell'Ottocento. La letteratura italiana; storia e testi 3 vols. Milano: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1972.
• Costa-Zalessow, Natalia. Scrittrici italiane dal XIII al XX secolo: testi e critica. Ravenna: Longo, 1982.
• D'Amore, Paola. "Il collezionismo vicino orientale in italia nel XIX secolo e la figura di Riccardo Colucci, diplomato." La conoscenza dell'Asia e dell'Africa in Italia nei secoli XVIII e XIX. Ed. Ugo Marazzi. Vol. 1. 3 vols. Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale; Editori Intercontinentali, 1984. 639-58.
• Daris, Sergio. Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia. La memoria e l'antico/Centro di Studi Papirologici dell'Università degli Studi di Lecce; 2. Napoli: Graus, 2005.
• Dawson, Warren R., and Eric P. Uphill. Who Was Who in Egyptology. 3rd revised edition. London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1995.
• Della Coletta, Cristina. "Travel Literature." The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature. Ed. Rinaldina Russell. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1997. 337-39.
• Ferri, Pietro Leopoldo. Biblioteca femminile italiana; raccolta, posseduta e descritta. Padova: Tipografia Crescini, 1842.
• Foster, Shirley. Across New Worlds: Nineteenth-Century Women Travellers and Their Writings. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990.
• Gabrielli, Livia. "Amalia Nizzoli: nuovi documenti per una biografia." Ricerche di egittologia e di antichità copte 1 (1999): 55-75.
• Ghezzi, Carla. Colonie, coloniali: storie di donne, uomini e istituti fra Italia e Africa. Roma: Istituto italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente, 2003.
• Hamilton, William Richard. "Address to the Royal Geographical Society of London." Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 12 (1842): xxxv-lxxxix.
• Monga, Luigi. "Travel and Travel Writing: An Historical Overview of Hodoeporics." Annali d'Italianistica 14 (1996): 6-54.
• Nizzoli, Giuseppe. Le Piramidi d'Egitto: Osservazioni di Giuseppe De Nizzoli. In relazione ad un articolo inseritto nell'appendice dell'Osservatore Triestino No. 61. - 1848. 2. Edizione. Parigi: Stamperia di J. Claye, 1858.
• ---. Memoria sopra di un cubito marmoreo della raccolta di monumenti egizj ora esistente in Firenze, di proprieta del Signor Nizzoli Cancelliere dell'I.R. Consolato Austriaco in Egitto. Milan: R. Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, 1824.
• "Rosetta Stone." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 4 Nov. 2007 .
• Parati, Graziella. "'Penetrating' the Harem, 'Giving Birth' to Memory: Amalia Nizzoli's Memorie sull'Egitto." RLA: Romance Languages Annual 6 (1994): 333-39.
• ---. Public History, Private Stories: Italian Women's Autobiography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
• Pernigotti, Sergio. "Amalia Nizzoli e le sue "Memorie sull'Egitto'." Aegyptiaca Bononiensia I. Ed. Sergio Pernigotti. vols. Monografie di Seap; Series Minor, 2. Pisa: Giardini Editori e Stampatori, 1991. 3-84.
• Pernigotti, Sergio, and Amalia Nizzoli, eds. Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828) . Napoli: Edizioni dell'Elleboro, 1996.
• Petricioli, Marta, and Barbara Codacci. "Italian Travellers in Egypt." Unfolding the Orient: Travellers in Egypt and the Near East. Eds. Paul Starkey and Janet Starkey. 1st edition. Reading: Ithaca Press, 2001. 225-37.
• Ricaldone, Luisa. "Uscire dall'Occidente. Donne e harem nelle esperienze di viaggio di Amalia Nizzoli, Cristina Di Belgioioso e Matilde Serao." Donnawomanfemme DWF 1-2.45-46 (2000): 54-73.
• Ricorda, Ricciarda. "Travel Writing, 1750-1860." Trans. Sharon Wood. A History of Women's Writing in Italy. Eds. Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. 107-19.
• Scriboni, Mirella. "Il viaggio al femminile nell'Ottocento: la Principessa Di Belgioioso, Amalia Nizzoli e Carla Serena." Annali d'Italianistica 14 (1996): 304-25.
• Siliotti, Alberto. Egypt: Lost and Found; Explorers and Travellers on the Nile. London: Thames & Hudson, 1998.
• Siliotti, Alberto, and Verona (Italy) Museo Archeologico al Teatro Romano. Viaggiatori veneti alla scoperta dell'Egitto: itinerari di storia e arte: rassegna internazionale di cinematografia archeologica. Venezia: Arsenale Editrice, 1985.
• Spackman, Barbara. "Detourism: Orienting Italy in Amalia Nizzoli's Memorie sull'Egitto." The Italianist 25.1 (2005): 35-54.
• Vanzan, Anna, Amalia Nizzoli. L'Egitto di Amalia Nizzoli: lettura del diario di una viaggiatrice della prima metà dell'Ottocento. Documenti (Centro Amilcar Cabral, Bologna, Italy); N. 1. Bologna: Il Nove, 1996.

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• ---. Gli illustri viaggiatori italiani con una antologia dei loro scritti. Roma: Stabilimento tipografico dell'Opinione, 1885.
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Notes

• 1. Various scholars have drawn this parallel; see for example Marta Petricioli and Barbara Codacci, "Italian Travellers in Egypt," Unfolding the Orient: Travellers in Egypt and the Near East, eds. Paul Starkey and Janet Starkey, 1st edition. (Reading: Ithaca Press, 2001) 235. Barbara Spackman, "Detourism: Orienting Italy in Amalia Nizzoli's Memorie sull'Egitto,"The Italianist 25.1 (2005): 37. Luigi Monga observes that the Grand Tour offered the possibility of studying Italy's antiquities and appropriating them in order to bring them to one's home country, an appropriation paralleled by early nineteenth century collectors in Egypt. See Luigi Monga, "Travel and Travel Writing: An Historical Overview of Hodoeporics," Annali d'Italianistica 14 (1996): 31-32.
• 2. Carla Ghezzi describes this category of women in her history of Italian-African relations, with a brief nod to Amalia Sola Nizzoli. See Carla Ghezzi, Colonie, coloniali: storie di donne, uomini e istituti fra Italia e Africa (Roma: Istituto italiano per l'Africa e l'Oriente, 2003) 120-21.
• 3. Augry-Merlino and Leospo propose that Amalia Sola Nizzoli merits inclusion in a history of Egyptology given her connection to her husband Giuseppe Nizzoli's antiquarian pursuits. Muriel Augry-Merlino and Enrica Leospo, Viaggio in Egitto: Racconti di donne dell'Ottocento = Voyage en Egypte, Récits de femmes du XIXème siècle (Turin: Centre Culturel Français de Turin, Museo Egizio di Torino, Istituto Italiano per la Civiltà Egizia, Centro Interuniversitario di Ricerche sul "Viaggio in Italia", 1998) 9.
• 4. Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, "Rosetta Stone," Encyclopaedia Britannica (2007). For Champollion, see Warren R. Dawson and Eric P. Uphill, Who Was Who in Egyptology, 3rd revised edition. (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1995).
• 5. Turin's Museo Egizio in the 1820s held probably the largest Egyptian collection in the world, according to Alberto Siliotti, inspiring Champollion to comment: "La route pour Memphis et Thèbes passe par Turin."Alberto Siliotti and Verona (Italy) Museo archeologico al Teatro romano, Viaggiatori veneti alla scoperta dell'Egitto: itinerari di storia e arte: rassegna internazionale di cinematografia archeologica (Venezia: Arsenale Editrice, 1985) 192.
• 6. See for example Albert Siliotti's description of European interest, and Paola D'Amore's of specifically Italian interest in Egypt from the eighteenth century onwards. See also Paola D'Amore for Giuseppe Nizzoli's contacts with Champollion. Paola D'Amore, "Il collezionismo vicino orientale in Italia nel XIX secolo e la figura di Riccardo Colucci, diplomato," La Conoscenza dell'Asia e dell'Africa in Italia nei secoli XVIII e XIX, ed. Ugo Marazzi, vol. 1 (Napoli: Istituto Universitario Orientale; Editori Intercontinentali, 1984). See especially pages 643 to 647. Noteworthy figures in the field of Egyptology in the early nineteenth century from the Italian peninsula include Ipolitto Rosellini (1800-1843), regarded as the founder of Egyptology in Italy; Girolamo Segato (1792-1836); Giovanni Battista Belzoni(1778-1823), responsible for key acquisitions by the British Museum; Bernardino Drovetti (1776-1852); Giuseppe Angelelli; Antonio Lebolo; Joseph Bonomi; and Giuseppe Forni. Alberto Siliotti, Egypt: Lost and Found; Explorers and Travellers on the Nile (London: Thames & Hudson, 1998) 287-92, Dawson and Uphill, Who Was Who in Egyptology. For early twentieth-century Italian works on Italian-Egyptian relations, see Roberto Almagià and Angelo Sammarco; both offer a rather dated and jingoistic viewpoint. Roberto Almagià, L'opera degli italiani per la conoscenza dell'Egitto per il suo risorgimento civile ed economico, ed. Comitato Geografico Nazionale Italiano (Roma: Proveditorato generale dello stato libreria, 1926), Angelo Sammarco, Gli Italiani in Egitto; il contributo italiano nella formazione dell'Egitto moderno (Alessandria d'Egitto: Edizioni del Fascio, 1937).
• 7. The difficulty of defining Italy and Italians is demonstrated by Bernardino Drovetti, for example, who was actually the French Consul, while Giuseppe Nizzoli was in the service of the Austrian state. Petricioli and Codacci note the meager size of the body of Italian writing from this era. See Petricioli and Codacci, "Italian Travellers in Egypt." Mirella Scriboni notes that after Unification, the quantity of voyages to Africa and their literature increased in Italy, yet even then the Italian corpus remained smaller relative to France or England. See Mirella Scriboni, "Il viaggio al femminile nell'Ottocento: la principessa di Belgioioso, Amalia Nizzoli e Carla Serena," Annali d'Italianistica 14 (1996): 306.
• 8. See Theodore J. Cachey's insightful article which however does not emphasize gender. Theodore J. Cachey, "An Italian Literary History of Travel," Annali d'Italianistica14 (1996). Cristina Della Coletta's entry provides an overview of travel writing and gender in the Italian tradition. Cristina Della Coletta, "Travel Literature," The Feminist Encyclopedia of Italian Literature, ed. Rinaldina Russell (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1997), vol.
• 9. Ricciarda Ricorda in her article regarding women's travel writing in the Italian tradition argues that there are in fact many overlooked authors, whose texts languish unknown or unpublished due to lack of critical interest. Ricciarda Ricorda, "Travel Writing, 1750-1860," trans. Sharon Wood, A History of Women's Writing in Italy, eds. Letizia Panizza and Sharon Wood (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Natalia Costa-Zalessow writes that Carmelo Cappuccio's inclusion of Amalia Sola Nizzoli in his Memorialisti dell'Ottocento was responsible for returning her work to circulation. Natalia Costa-Zalessow, Scrittrici italiane dal XIII al XX secolo: testi e critica (Ravenna: Longo, 1982) 216. Mirella Scriboni situates Nizzoli and Belgioioso in regards to such predecessors as the eighteenth-century British aristocrat and writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Scriboni, "Il viaggio al femminile nell'Ottocento: la Principessa di Belgioioso, Amalia Nizzoli e Carla Serena," 308-09.
• 10. Nizzoli obviously lives and writes before Italian unification and the push towards "fare le italiane," to rephrase Massimo D'Azeglio's famous aphorism; for more on post-Unification Italian womanhood, see Michela De Giorgio, Le italiane dall'Unità a oggi: modelli culturali e comportamenti sociali (Roma: Laterza, 1992). See also Sharon Wood, "Unification: Making and Unmaking the Nation," Italian Women's Writing 1860-1994, Pt. 1, 1860-1922, (London and Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey: Athlone, 1995).
• 11. Mirella Scriboni observes that a sexed subjectivity is "un elemento imprescindibile che entra in gioco anche nella struttura dell'opera e nella scelta degli argomenti, soprattutto nella trattazione del tema dell'harem, che negli scritti di Amalia Nizzoli e di Cristina di Belgioioso (per loro esplicita dichiarazione) è l'oggetto principale della narrazione." Scriboni, "Il viaggio al femminile nell'Ottocento: la Principessa di Belgioioso, Amalia Nizzoli e Carla Serena," 319. Graziella Parati discusses Nizzoli's treatment of the harem in detail; see Graziella Parati, "‘Penetrating' the Harem, ‘Giving Birth' to Memory: Amalia Nizzoli's Memorie sull'Egitto," RLA: Romance Languages Annual 6 (1994). For more on Italian women travel writers and the harem, see Augry-Merlino and Leospo, Viaggio in Egitto: racconti di donne dell'Ottocento = Voyage en Egypte, récits de femmes du XIXème siècle 57.
• 12. Graziella Parati concludes in her study of Italian women's autobiography that a certain "topos of modesty" is the common thread among the diverse autobiographical texts she treats, a rhetoric that allows their occupation of a more public, literary position. Nizzoli occasionally employs a similar kind of modest rhetoric. Graziella Parati, Public History, Private Stories: Italian Women's Autobiography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996) 153. Mirella Scriboni also comments upon Nizzoli's introduction; see Scriboni, "Il viaggio al femminile nell'Ottocento: la Principessa di Belgioioso, Amalia Nizzoli e Carla Serena," 316. For a close reading of Nizzoli's memoirs with attention to Orientalism and gender, see Spackman, "Detourism: Orienting Italy in Amalia Nizzoli's Memorie sull'Egitto." See also Luisa Ricaldone, "Uscire dall'Occidente. Donne e harem nelle esperienze di viaggio di Amalia Nizzoli, Cristina Di Belgioioso e Matilde Serao." Donnawomanfemme DWF 1-2.45-46 (2000). Anna Vanzan also treats Nizzoli; see Anna Vanzan, Amalia Nizzoli, L'Egitto di Amalia Nizzoli: lettura del diario di una viaggiatrice della prima metà dell'Ottocento, Documenti (Centro Amilcar Cabral, Bologna, Italy); N. 1 (Bologna: Il Nove, 1996).
• 13. See Sergio Pernigotti and Amalia Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828) (Napoli: Edizioni dell'Elleboro, 1996) 196-98. Giambattista Brocchi, from Bassano, a natural scientist interested in archaeology and known for his travel journals, had earlier published the letters he penned to Amalia in the March 30, 1830, issue of the Osservatore Triestino and the August 8, 1830, issue of the Gazzetta privilegiata di Milano. Livia Gabrielli, "Amalia Nizzoli: nuovi documenti per una biografia," Ricerche di egittologia e di antichità copte 1 (1999): 61. See Giambattista Brocchi, 1772-1826, Giornale delle osservazioni fatte ne' viaggi in Egitto, nella Siria e nella Nubia, 5 vols. (Bassano: A. Roberti, 1843). Amalia Sola Nizzoli is also listed in L. A. Balboni, Gl'italiani nella civiltà egiziana del secolo XIX; storia-biografie-monografie (Alessandria, Egitto Tipo-litografico v. Penasson, 1906) 277-78. A second example is Pietro Amat di San Filippo's bibliographies of Italian voyagers. Amat di San Filippo was a member of the Società Geografica Italiana, notes Scriboni. Scriboni, "Il viaggio al femminile nell'Ottocento: la Principessa Di Belgioioso, Amalia Nizzoli e Carla Serena," 304. Pietro Amat di San Filippo, Bibliografia dei viaggiatori italiani; ordinata cronologicamente ed illustrata (Roma: Coi Tipi del Salviucci, 1874), Pietro Amat di San Filippo, Gli illustri viaggiatori italiani con una antologia dei loro scritti (Roma: Stabilimento tipografico dell'Opinione, 1885).
• 14. Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828) 17-18. All translations mine unless otherwise noted.
• 15. According to Shirley Foster, such a textual strategy using one's femininity is also found among nineteenth-century travel writings by British women. Shirley Foster, Across New Worlds: Nineteenth-Century Women Travellers and Their Writings (New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990) 16-19. For more on Nizzoli's use of Arabic, see Graziella Parati. Parati, "‘Penetrating' the Harem, ‘Giving Birth' to Memory: Amalia Nizzoli's Memorie sull'Egitto," 335. Muriel Augry-Merlino and Enrica Leospo make a similar point. See Augry-Merlino and Leospo, Viaggio in Egitto: racconti di donne dell'Ottocento = Voyage en Egypte, récits de femmes du XIXème siècle 57.
• 16. Graziella Parati discusses gender, Amalia's uneasy position betwixt and between various subject positions, and Amalia's collecting "of the unusual, the strange, the curious and somewhat inferior cultures treated as ‘collectors' items,' museum pieces, like the mummies that Giuseppe Nizzoli brings back to Italy." Amalia is disgusted by bellydancing, for instance. Parati, "‘Penetrating' the Harem, ‘Giving Birth' to Memory: Amalia Nizzoli's Memorie sull'Egitto," 334. Anna Vanzan's study of the images of Islam in the Italian imagination is also of interest. Anna Vanzan, La storia velata: le donne dell'Islam nell'immaginario italiano (Roma: Lavoro, 2006).
• 17. Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828) 209.
• 18. Livia Gabrielli suggests that Amalia may have been born in Livorno in 1805, since Gabrielli found an entry for Amalia, dated July 22, 1805, in the baptismal register of Livorno's cathedral. Gabrielli writes that Amalia was baptized as Prassede Amalia Maria, and therefore apparently preferred her second name. Gabrielli, "Amalia Nizzoli: nuovi documenti per una biografia," 58.
• 19. According to Natalia Costa-Zalessow, Amalia's parents fled Turin ahead of French Republican forces. Costa-Zalessow, Scrittrici italiane dal XIII al XX secolo: testi e critica 216. Amalia also says as much in her memoirs. Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828) 2.
• 20. Carmelo Cappuccio and Gaetano Trombatore, Memorialisti dell'Ottocento, La letteratura italiana; storia e testi 3vols. (Milano Riccardo Ricciardi, 1972) 55. Sergio Pernigotti describes Amalia's father as also being a physician; see his introduction. Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828) 11.
• 21. The level of education displayed in her memoirs is one hint of her schooling; Natalia Costa-Zalessow speculates on Amalia's education. Costa-Zalessow, Scrittrici italiane dal XIII al XX secolo: testi e critica 216.
• 22. Parati, "‘Penetrating' the Harem, ‘Giving Birth' to Memory: Amalia Nizzoli's Memorie sull'Egitto," 336.
• 23. These familial events are recounted in the memoirs, as well as by scholars. For the family's move to Egypt and the arranged marriage, see for example Costa-Zalessow, Scrittrici italiane dal XIII al XX secolo: testi e critica 216. See also Sergio Pernigotti's introduction to the 1996 edition of the memoirs, Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828). See also Scriboni, "Il viaggio al femminile nell'Ottocento: la Principessa Di Belgioioso, Amalia Nizzoli e Carla Serena," 312. See also Augry-Merlino and Leospo, Viaggio in Egitto: Racconti di donne dell'Ottocento = Voyage en Egypte, Récits de femmes du XIXème siècle 53.
• 24. Sergio Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia, La Memoria e l'antico/Centro di Studi Papirologici dell'Università degli Studi di Lecce; 2 (Napoli: Graus, 2005) 15, 9-21. According to Daris, the marriage was registered on January 30, 1820, in the church of Assunta in Cairo, but another source states it as January 29. See Dawson and Uphill, Who Was Who in Egyptology.
• 25. For a brief summary of Giuseppe Nizzoli's career, see Dawson and Uphill, Who Was Who in Egyptology. For greater detail, see Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia.
• 26. She was born January 5, 1823, in Livorno. In 1841 at age 18, she wed Henry Knight Storks, a major in the 38th regiment of the British army, born in 1811 in London and stationed in Zante. He conducted a successful career as soldier and functionary, serving in Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius, Malta, Jamaica, Ionian islands, later becoming a Member of Parliament, and winning knighthood. He died on September 6, 1874. Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 26, 127.
• 27. Born in 1827, Luigia Antonietta was a sickly child, who first lost her sight in one eye due to an illness before dying during the journey from Alexandria to Smyrna, as recounted in the sixteenth chapter of the memoirs. Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 46. Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828) 13, 201-09. Costa-Zalessow, Scrittrici italiane dal XIII al XX secolo: testi e critica 217.
• 28. For the harem visits, see the eighth, ninth and tenth chapters of Nizzoli's memoirs in the 1996 edition. Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828). Petricioli and Codacci, "Italian Travellers in Egypt," 232. Marta Petricioli and Barbara Codacci note that Amalia's harem experience must be qualified as exceptional rather than representative, since these were the harems of wealthy, powerful men, a point seconded by Mirella Scriboni. Scriboni, "Il viaggio al femminile nell'Ottocento: la Principessa Di Belgioioso, Amalia Nizzoli e Carla Serena," 320.
• 29. For a very concise timeline of Giuseppe Nizzoli's collections, their sales, and their current locations, see Dawson and Uphill, Who Was Who in Egyptology. Pernigotti, in the introduction to the 1996 edition of the memoirs, describes the history of Giuseppe Nizzoli's collections. Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828) 9-11. Pernigotti also describes Giuseppe Nizzoli's collections in a separate article; see Sergio Pernigotti, "Amalia Nizzoli e le sue ‘Memorie sull'Egitto'," Aegyptiaca Bononiensia I, ed. Sergio Pernigotti, Monografie di Seap; Series Minor, 2 (Pisa: Giardini Editori e Stampatori, 1991). Another detailed account of Giuseppe Nizzoli's collections can be found in Appendix B of Christine Lilyquist's article. See Christine Lilyquist, "The Gold Bowl Naming General Djehuty: A Study of Objects and Early Egyptology," Metropolitan Museum Journal 23 (1988). Giuseppe's collections also are detailed by Paola D'Amore. See D'Amore, "Il collezionismo vicino orientale in Italia nel XIX secolo e la figura di Riccardo Colucci, diplomato," 643-47. An earlier source discussing Giuseppe Nizzoli's collections is Jean Capart. Jean Capart, "The Memphite Tomb of King Haremhab," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 7.1/2 (1921): 32. Giuseppe Nizzoli's catalogs were cited into the twentieth century; see for instance William C. Hayes, "A Writing-Palette of the Chief Steward Amenhotpe and Some Notes on Its Owner," The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 24.1 (1938). Graziella Parati notes that Giuseppe Nizzoli was the secretary of the Associazione Antiquaria d'Egitto. Parati, "‘Penetrating' the Harem, ‘Giving Birth' to Memory: Amalia Nizzoli's Memorie Sull'egitto," 333.
• 30. Saqqara is sometimes transliterated as Sakkarah, and is near the location of the ancient city of Memphis. See the eleventh chapter of the 1996 edition of the memoirs for the excavations in Saqqara. Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828). Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 33. Amalia Nizzoli's experience managing the excavations was unusual, comment Muriel Augry-Merlino and Enrica Leospo. Augry-Merlino and Leospo, Viaggio in Egitto: racconti di donne dell'Ottocento = Voyage en Egypte, Récits de femmes du XIXème siècle 53.
• 31. The episode is recounted in Daris. Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 11, 46-49, 50-55, 89-90.
• 32. Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828) 13. For the description in the memoirs, see the sixteenth chapter of the 1996 edition. Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828).
• 33. Pernigotti describes briefly the years 1828-1835 in his introduction; see Pernigotti and Nizzoli, eds., Memorie sull'Egitto e specialmente sui costumi delle donne orientali e gli harem scritte durante il suo sogiorno in quel paese (1819-1828) 13-14. See also Scriboni, "Il viaggio al femminile nell'Ottocento: la Principessa Di Belgioioso, Amalia Nizzoli e Carla Serena," 312-14. For a more detailed account with a focus on Giuseppe Nizzoli, see Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 11, 87-93.
• 34. The moving expenses and the cost of living on Zante presented financial difficulties for the Nizzoli family. Eventually, Amalia and daughter Elisa would write to Giuseppe's superiors in Trieste to plead their case. See Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 92-100. For the letter, which was received September 20, 1838 in Trieste, see Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 108-11.
• 35. A translator of Walter Scott and Victor Hugo and a historian, Cusani would publish the stories of his travels in the Ionian islands and Greece in 1840. Francesco Cusani, La Dalmazia, le Isole Jonie e la Grecia (visitate nel 1840); Memoire Storico-Statistiche, 2 vols. (Milano: Pirotta, 1846-1847).
• 36. At the Brooklyn Museum Libraries and Archives I was able to examine two of Giuseppe's works, Le piramidi d'Egitto: Osservazioni and Memoria sopra di un cubito marmoreo della raccolta di monumenti Egizj ora esistente in Firenze, di proprieta del signor Nizzoli cancelliere dell'I.R. consolato Austriaco in Egitto, which belonged to the professional library of American Egyptologist Charles Edwin Wilbour (1833–1896) donated to the Brooklyn Museum. For more information on the Brooklyn Museum's holdings, visit http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/collections/egyptian_classical_middle_eastern/ In the work Le piramidi d'Egitto: Osservazioni, for example, Giuseppe Nizzoli seems to slip into directly quoting his wife's memoirs, without specific attribution. For example, page 12 recalls page 139 of the 1996 edition of the memoirs, and pages 16 and 17 seem close to pages 140 and 141 of that same edition. My impression is seconded by Daris. Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 121. Daris comments, "Con una certa frequenza Nizzoli trova opportuno richiamare larghi brani--perlopiú vere e proprie citazioni alla lettera con minimi addattamenti--delle Memorie della moglie, che avevano visto la luce solo quattro anni prima." Giuseppe Nizzoli, Le piramidi d'Egitto: Osservazioni di Giuseppe De Nizzoli. In relazione ad un articolo inseritto nell'appendice dell'Osservatore Triestino No. 61.-1848, 2. ed. (Parigi: Stamperia di J. Claye, 1858). Giuseppe Nizzoli, Memoria sopra di un cubito marmoreo della raccolta di monumenti egizj ora esistente in Firenze, di proprieta del Signor Nizzoli Cancelliere dell'I.R. Consolato Austriaco in Egitto (Milan: R. Istituto lombardo di scienze e lettere, 1824).
• 37. For details on Francesco Cusani's role see Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 111-13. See also Cappuccio and Trombatore, Memorialisti dell'Ottocento 58.
• 38. In the letters, Amalia provides personal news and thanks Cusani for his assistance and for sending her a review of her book by "signor Piazza." Cappuccio and Trombatore, Memorialisti dell'Ottocento 58. Livia Gabrielli reprints these letters in her text and reports that they are held by the Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense of Milan. See Gabrielli, "Amalia Nizzoli: nuovi documenti per una biografia," 66-67.
• 39. Her book was reviewed favorably by critic Antonio Piazza, presumably the "signor Piazza" referred to in the Cusani-Nizzoli correspondence, of the Gazzetta Privilegiata di Milano number 148, 28 May 1841, according to Daris, Gabrielli, Cappuccio and Trombatore. Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 111-13, Gabrielli, "Amalia Nizzoli: nuovi documenti per una biografia," 72. Cappuccio and Trombatore, Memorialisti dell'Ottocento 58.
• 40. Besides the aforementioned works by Pietro Amat di San Filippo, see also Pietro Leopoldo Ferri's 1842 collection of Italian women's writing. Pietro Leopoldo Ferri, Biblioteca femminile italiana; raccolta, posseduta e descritta (Padova: Tipografia Crescini, 1842).
• 41. William Richard Hamilton, "Address to the Royal Geographical Society of London," Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London 12 (1842): lxxxvi.
• 42. Scriboni proposes that Amalia died between 1841 and 1849. Scriboni, "Il viaggio al femminile nell'Ottocento: la Principessa Di Belgioioso, Amalia Nizzoli e Carla Serena," 313. Similarly, Natalia Costa-Zalessow suggests Amalia's death occurred between 1841 and 1849, possibly by 1846, when Giuseppe Nizzoli was transferred to Sira in the Cyclades. Costa-Zalessow, Scrittrici italiane dal XIII al XX secolo: testi e critica 217. Subsequently, Giuseppe Nizzoli served in a succession of increasingly prestigious posts, culminating with Salonicco (1851-1858), his final post. According to Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli's death was reported in the Osservatore Triestino of December 10, 1858: "È morto a Salonicco, generalmente compianto, il sig. Giuseppe Nizzoli, viceconsole generale d'Austria. Ai suoi funerali assistette moltissima gente. Il sig. Radossavljevich, cancelliere, assunse la direzione provvisoria del Consolato." Daris, Giuseppe Nizzoli: un impiegato consolare austriaco nel Levante agli albori dell'egittologia 134.

Submitted by Gabrielle Elissa Popoff, Columbia University, 2009.