Italian pharmacist and botanist Antonio Bey Figari undertook extensive explorations in north-east Africa and Arabia, where he amassed significant collections of plants and other material.

Figari was born in Genoa, where he served an apprenticeship in a pharmacy before undertaking studies at the University of Genoa. After obtaining his diploma in pharmacy Figari left for Egypt, where he worked at first in Alexandria and then in Cairo, for the French military. By 1829 he had been appointed to oversee the military hospital in Cairo, and from 1839 served as inspector of pharmacies. Figari simultaneously taught botany at the medical school in Cairo and from 1833 was in charge of its laboratories, through which he introduced modern concepts of pharmacy to Egypt. He married in 1827 and went on to have six children.

All the while, Figari collected natural history material in Egypt, including botanical zoological and fossil material. The first collection of these that he sent to Europe was a consignment of 400 plants from the outskirts of Alexandria and Cairo, received by Domenico Viviani in 1830. Later collections went to Giuseppe de Notaris.

In 1844-1849, at the behest of pashas Muhammad Ali and Abbas I, Figari undertook a series of expeditions in the Arabian desert, Egypt and Anatolia in search of marble and coal. These travels also gave him the opportunity to make further collections of plants, which he sent to the newly established herbarium in Florence. His entire collection of 30,000 specimens was presented to Florence in 1865.

With de Notaris, Figari published the enumerations Nuovi Materiali par l'Algologia del Mar Rosso and Agrostographiae Aegyptiacae Fragmenta (both 1851). His most important work, however, was his account of Egyptian natural history, Studi scientifici sull'Egitto e sue adiacenze, compresa la penisola dell'Arabia Petrea (1864-1865).

Figari briefly returned to Europe after his exertions, serving on the committee of the Egyptian viceroy for the Paris Exposition of 1867. After two further years in Cairo, in 1870 he returned to Genoa, where he died in November.

Sources:
A. Béguinot, 1938, Archivio Botanico e Biogeografico Italiano , 14: 290-315
M.A. Cappelletti, 1997, "Figari, Antonio", in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, 47
J. Vallot, 1882, Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France, 29: 179.