Giovanni Battista Belzoni, an Italian traveller and explorer, the son of a barber, born in Padua about 1778, died in Africa, Dec. 3, 1823. He was educated for monastic life; but the French revolution broke up this design, and after wandering for some time about the continent, he went to England in 1803. Here he at first gained a precarious subsistence by exhibiting as an athlete at Astley's circus, being endowed with prodigious strength. To these feats were added scientific experiments, as he had paid much attention to natural philosophy, particularly to hydraulics. He married in England, and after residing there for nine years visited Portugal, Spain, and Malta. Conceiving the idea of offering his services to the pasha of Egypt in constructing water wheels to irrigate the fields contiguous to the Nile, he arrived in Egypt June 9, 1815. He first constructed for the pasha one of his hydraulic machines, at the gardens of Subra, three miles from Cairo. Mehemet Ali himself appears to have been satisfied with it, but the cultivators regarded it as an innovation, and their prejudices obliged Belzoni to abandon his scheme without even being rewarded by the pasha.

His curiosity being now strongly excited on the subject of Egyptian antiquities, at the recommendation of Burckhardt he was employed by Mr. Salt, the English consul, to remove the colossal head, generally but incorrectly styled the young Memnon. This Belzoni successfully accomplished, in the face of great difficulties, transporting it to Alexandria, and thence shipping it for England. In the mean time he made excursions to the mountain of Gornoo, to Asswan and Philre, and at Ip-sambul he was the first to open the great temple which had been discovered by Burckhardt. In 1817 he made a second journey to Upper Egypt, and became involved in a quarrel with Drovetti, the French consul, and his coadjutor the count de Forbin. He visited the necropolis of Thebes, and made excavations at Karnak. Belzoni also discovered another colossal head of granite, which is now in the British museum, and, in the valley of Biban-ul-Moluk, the most perfect of known Egyptian tombs, a model of which, exhibited by him in London in 1821, attracted crowds of visitors. Before leaving Egypt he succeeded in 1818, after much trouble, in exploring the second of the great pyramids of Gizeh, that of Chephren or Sephres. This, ever since the time of Herodotus, was believed to be without internal chambers.

After 30 days of persevering labor, Belzoni found the entrance, and penetrated to the central chamber. He also visited the district of Fayoom, the oasis of Jupiter Amnion, and Lake Moeris, and discovered the ruins of Berenice. He left Egypt in September, 1819, and visited his native city of Padua, where a medal was struck in his honor; and on his return to England he published a "Narrative of the Operations and recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia" (3d ed., 2 vols. 8vo, London, 1822). In 1823 he formed the design of penetrating to Timbuctoo in Africa, and had reached the bight of Benin, but was attacked with dysentery, of which he died at a small place in Benin.