Notices
The Mensa Isiaca among the ‘Tesori dei Faraoni’ at the Scuderie del Quirinale
info@museitorino.it
011 44 06 903
From Monday to Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
From October 24, 2025, to May 3, 2026, the Mensa Isiaca will be on display in Rome as part of the major exhibition “Treasures of the Pharaohs” at the Scuderie del Quirinale. Together with 129 other artifacts from leading Egyptian museums, it will help reconstruct the civilization of ancient Egypt — from the divine role of the pharaohs to the social structure, from spirituality to the rituals of the afterlife, up to the most recent archaeological discoveries.
This extraordinary bronze table, created in the 1st century BCE using the lost-wax casting technique and finely decorated with copper, silver, and niello inlays, is now interpreted as a visual representation of Greek hymns dedicated to the cult of Isis, celebrated in Rome.
According to the most widely accepted hypothesis, the Mensa Isiaca was originally placed in the Iseum Campense, the Temple of Isis in the Campus Martius.
The cult of the goddess Isis was introduced to Rome as early as the 2nd century BCE, when the Romans, expanding into the eastern Mediterranean, encountered the admiration the Greeks had long held for the civilization of the Nile, dating back to Herodotus (5th century BCE).
The goddess was one of the most important female deities of the ancient Egyptian pantheon: sister and wife of Osiris (the first legendary king of Egypt who became ruler of the underworld), mother of the god Horus, and a maternal and protective figure. In the Greco-Roman world, Isis was celebrated as the embodiment of the traditionally feminine roles associated with Aphrodite (Greece) and Venus (Rome) — love and beauty — to which was added the dimension of wisdom.
The first modern record of this work dates back to the 16th century, when in 1522 the humanist Pietro Bembo purchased it from circles close to the papal court — hence its alternative name, Tavola Bembina. In 1592, his son Torquato Bembo sold it to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, bringing it into the collection of the Dukes of Mantua.
Between the end of 1626 and the second half of the 1630s, the Mensa Isiaca was sold to Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy. In 1724, by order of King Vittorio Amedeo II, many works from the Savoy collection were transferred to the newly founded “University Museum,” forming the earliest core of what would become the Museo Egizio.
A team of experts from the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Conservation Institute, in collaboration with the Museo Egizio, carried out an in-depth study of the Mensa Isiaca to understand its composition through detailed archaeometric analyses. For those wishing to explore the subject further, the full research article is available in the Rivista del Museo Egizio.
If you’d like to watch the restoration video, CLICK HERE.
We also dedicated an international symposium to the Mensa Isiaca, which you can view AT THIS LINK.
The Mensa Isiaca represents a milestone in the history of the Museo Egizio. It is displayed in the Historical Halls to highlight the significance of this artifact, which greatly influenced the House of Savoy’s decision to identify the ancient Egyptians as their ancestors.
Although we regret not being able to display it in our galleries until early May, we are honored that it has been chosen as one of the symbolic artifacts to tell the extraordinary, millennia-old story of Nile civilization.
In place of the Mensa Isiaca, we have enhanced the presentation of the artifact with new interpretive materials.
This extraordinary bronze table, created in the 1st century BCE using the lost-wax casting technique and finely decorated with copper, silver, and niello inlays, is now interpreted as a visual representation of Greek hymns dedicated to the cult of Isis, celebrated in Rome.
Where was it originally located?
According to the most widely accepted hypothesis, the Mensa Isiaca was originally placed in the Iseum Campense, the Temple of Isis in the Campus Martius.
The cult of the goddess Isis was introduced to Rome as early as the 2nd century BCE, when the Romans, expanding into the eastern Mediterranean, encountered the admiration the Greeks had long held for the civilization of the Nile, dating back to Herodotus (5th century BCE).
The goddess was one of the most important female deities of the ancient Egyptian pantheon: sister and wife of Osiris (the first legendary king of Egypt who became ruler of the underworld), mother of the god Horus, and a maternal and protective figure. In the Greco-Roman world, Isis was celebrated as the embodiment of the traditionally feminine roles associated with Aphrodite (Greece) and Venus (Rome) — love and beauty — to which was added the dimension of wisdom.
Where was the Mensa Isiaca kept afterward?
The first modern record of this work dates back to the 16th century, when in 1522 the humanist Pietro Bembo purchased it from circles close to the papal court — hence its alternative name, Tavola Bembina. In 1592, his son Torquato Bembo sold it to Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga, bringing it into the collection of the Dukes of Mantua.
Between the end of 1626 and the second half of the 1630s, the Mensa Isiaca was sold to Carlo Emanuele I of Savoy. In 1724, by order of King Vittorio Amedeo II, many works from the Savoy collection were transferred to the newly founded “University Museum,” forming the earliest core of what would become the Museo Egizio.
How was it made?
A team of experts from the J. Paul Getty Museum and the Getty Conservation Institute, in collaboration with the Museo Egizio, carried out an in-depth study of the Mensa Isiaca to understand its composition through detailed archaeometric analyses. For those wishing to explore the subject further, the full research article is available in the Rivista del Museo Egizio.
If you’d like to watch the restoration video, CLICK HERE.
We also dedicated an international symposium to the Mensa Isiaca, which you can view AT THIS LINK.
In the Historical Halls of the Museo Egizio
The Mensa Isiaca represents a milestone in the history of the Museo Egizio. It is displayed in the Historical Halls to highlight the significance of this artifact, which greatly influenced the House of Savoy’s decision to identify the ancient Egyptians as their ancestors.
Although we regret not being able to display it in our galleries until early May, we are honored that it has been chosen as one of the symbolic artifacts to tell the extraordinary, millennia-old story of Nile civilization.
In place of the Mensa Isiaca, we have enhanced the presentation of the artifact with new interpretive materials.
info@museitorino.it
011 44 06 903
From Monday to Saturday from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
