Born in 1914 in
Palermo, he was fascinated by the
ancient Egypt since childhood, with a particular interest on the
Greco-Roman period. In 1931 he enrolled the
Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa and later he moved to
France and studied under
Gustave Lefebvre,
Alexandre Moret and
Étienne Drioton. Donadoni then moved to Egypt, and since 1935 he participated to an excavation campaign at
Antinoopolis led by his teacher, the
archaeologist Evaristo Breccia. In 1938 he was a student of
Hermann Junker at
Cairo. During the war, from 1938 to 1940, he joined the excavation of the
Middle Kingdom temple of
Medinet Madi led by
Achille Vogliano. At the end of the 1940s he returned to Italy and started teaching at the
University of Pisa, He died on 31 October 2015 in Rome. ==See also==