DR. BARBARA JATTA

Dr. Barbara Jatta has been Director of the Vatican Museums since 2017 and is the first woman to hold the position. She graduated from the La Sapienza University in Rome and did periods of post-graduate study in the UK, Portugal, and the United States. 

Dr. Jatta once taught graphic arts at a university in Naples and for over 20 years she worked in the Vatican library, including as curator of its Gabinetto della Stampa, the division dealing with rare prints. 

The Vatican Museums house some 200,000 works, of which 25,000 or so are on view. Besides the better-known museums, like the Etruscan and Ethnographic Museums, the Vatican museums also house seven laboratories for conservation and restoration, staffed by 100 restorers specialized in everything from restoration of paintings and marble sculptures to paper, ceramics, textiles and even straw.