He is known for his removal to England of the seven-tonne bust of Ramesses II, the clearing of sand from the entrance of the great temple at Abu Simbel, the discovery and documentation of the tomb of Seti I (still sometimes known as "Belzoni's Tomb"), including the sarcophagus of Seti I, and the first to penetrate into the Pyramid of Khafre, the second pyramid of the Giza complex.

He intended on taking monastic vows, but in 1798 the occupation of the city by French troops drove him from Rome and changed his proposed career.

[3] They were for some time compelled to subsist by performing exhibitions of feats of strength and agility as a strongman at fairs and on the streets of London.

In 1812 he left England and after a tour of performances in Spain, Portugal and Sicily, he went to Malta in 1815 where he met Ismael Gibraltar, an emissary of Muhammad Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, who at the time was undertaking a programme of agrarian land reclamation and important irrigation works.

[5] Belzoni wanted to show Muhammad Ali a hydraulic machine of his own invention for raising the waters of the Nile.

On the recommendation of the orientalist J. L. Burckhardt he was sent by Henry Salt, the British consul to Egypt, to the Ramesseum at Thebes, from where he removed with great skill the colossal bust of Ramesses II, commonly called the "Younger Memnon".

[7] A medal depicting a profile of Belzoni created by William Brockedon was cast in 1821 by Sir Edward Thomason.

Years later, in 1859 in Padua, Ronalds advised sculptor Rinaldo Rinaldi on the large medallion he was creating to commemorate Belzoni in his hometown.

Horace Smith, a poet in the circle of Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote " Address to the Mummy in Belzoni's Exhibition."