Vatican City has been governed by men since it was established as an independent state in 1929. A year ago, however, a woman joined the upper ranks: Barbara Jatta, the first female director of the Vatican Museums.
In the 12 months since her appointment, Ms.Jatta has put her stamp on the role, resisting some of her predecessor’s initiatives and forging her own path.
Ms.Jatta was the only woman on an initial list of six candidates, and she was chosen by Pope Francis. In the post since January, she oversees some 200,000 objects and an array of museums, papal apartments, sculpture courtyards and other sites, including the Sistine Chapel.
The chapel is one of the Roman Catholic Church’s holiest places, where Popes are elected. It is also packed almost daily with ever-larger crowds scrambling to gaze at Michelangelo’s famous frescoed ceiling. The Vatican Museums say visitor numbers in 2017 are expected to reach a record, significantly exceeding the six million that Ms.Jatta’s predecessor, Antonio Paolucci, defined as an annual upper limit. The escalating total pose the toughest challenge to Ms.Jatta’s directorship.
Ms.Jatta is friendly yet firm, and she expresses high ambitions for herself and for the institution. In an interview, she said that she had worked for 20 years in the Vatican Library, leading its prints department from 2010. When she heard of her nomination for the Vatican Museums role, she said, “it came as a shock at first, to face such a big change.”
Regarding her gender, Ms.Jatta said she “didn’t realize what it meant until I started the job. Whenever I attended conferences or public events, so many women would come up to me, saying: ‘We are proud, and you are also, in some way, representing us.’”
Her office, which overlooks the Michelangelo-designed dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, was filled with family pictures, a framed photograph of Pope Francis, and the portrait bust of another predecessor: the neo-Classical sculptor Antonio Canova, the first director of the papal museums.
Ms.Jatta said that art had played a big role in her family: Her mother and sister are art restorers; her grandmother, who was originally from Russia, was a painter; and her paternal ancestors founded an archaeological museum named after the family in Ruvo di Puglia, in southern Italy.
