HIPPOLYTUS ROSSELLINI. - Egyptologist, born in Pisa on 13 August 1800, died there on 4 June 1843.
Having graduated in theology in his native city (1821), he moved to Bologna where he devoted himself to the study of Oriental languages under the guidance of G. Mezzofant
i. Appointed professor of Oriental literature at Pisa (1826), in 1827 he met J
F. Champollion (q.v.) and was drawn to the new science to which he was to make a notable contribution. In the years 1828–29 he accompanied Champollion to Egypt as head of the “Tuscan Literary Expedition” promoted by Grand Duke Leopold II. Rossellini’s name is associated with: *I monumenti dell’Egitto e della Nubia* (12 vols., nine of text and three of plates, Pisa 1832–44), an imposing collection of archaeological and epigraphic material that won unanimous acclaim from foreign Egyptologists, particularly R. Lepsius and C. Leemans. A practicing Catholic, Rossellini was a friend of the Barnabite L. M. Ungarelli (q.v.).BIBL.: G. Gabrieli, *Carteggio inedito di I. P. e di L. M. Ungarelli*, in *Orientalia*, 19 (1926), p. 49 ff.; various authors, *Scritti dedicati alla memoria di I. P. nel primo centenario della morte*, Florence 1945, passim; G. Botti, *I. P.*, in *Studi in memoria di I. P. nel primo centenario della morte*, I, Pisa 1949, pp. 1–34 (offprint).