An Innovator at the Vatican MUSEUMS Museums’ new director, Barbara Jatta, aims to focus on conservation, restoration and crowd control BY FRANCIS X. ROCCA Vatican City THE VATICAN is a famously male-dominated institution, but on at least one count, it’s beaten the secular world in creating opportunities for women. Pope Francis’s decision to appoint Barbara Jatta as director of the Vatican Museums in December makes it the first of the world’s most important museums to have a woman at the helm— ahead of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Prado Museum and the Louvre. Her appointment reflects a little- known tradition of innovation that belies the Vatican’s image as hidebound and backward, says Ms. Jatta, 54. She intends to exploit the museums’ technological expertise, as she also confronts major financial, administrative and crowding challenges. It is an especially important appointment for the Vatican, given that the museums are a major source of revenue, with about €300 million ($323 million) in gross revenues a year and at least €40 million in profits. “I benefit somewhat from the desire of Pope Francis to show openness in so many ways,” said Ms. Jatta, who oversaw the Vatican Library’s collection of rare prints before starting her current job in December. “But I hope I was chosen because of what I did in the Vatican over the last 20 years.” The modern spirit of the Vatican Museums, today the home of the Sistine Chapel with its famous Michelangelo frescoes, as well as works of art by Raphael, Giotto and Titian, is rooted in history. Pope Julius II shared his sculpture collection with scholars and poets in the early 16th century, and Pope Clement XIV opened the doors to a wider public in 1771—both rare gestures for their times. A major focus for Ms. Jatta will be sustaining the technological prowess of the museum, which boasts eight conservation labs and more than 150 full- and part-time restoration experts undertaking advanced work with lasers, nanotechnology and bio-technology. The extraordinary breadth of the museum’s collections—which range from ceramics to tapestries to mosaics—offers its technicians and conservators the opportunity to find new ways of caring for everything “from Indian feathers to hair in the Ethnological Museum to Japanese tatami,” Ms. Jatta says. “I don’t think there is another example…of so many and such highly qualified restorers and other professionals working with many different types of material,” says the new director. For instance, the Vatican has conducted work in using essential oils to protect sculptures and other stone works from biological degradation, says Admir Masic, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Masic collaborated with museum staff in the early stages of the 2008-2014 restoration of the 17th-century colonnade built by Gian Lorenzo Bernini around St. Peter’s Square. Page 1 of 3 City News 2/1/2017 http://ereader.wsj.net/ee/_nmum/_default_bb_include_inframe.php?TOKEN=6ae85c11dee7...
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An Innovator at the Vatican
MUSEUMS
Museums’ new director, Barbara Jatta, aims to focus on conservation, restoration and crowd control
BY FRANCIS X. ROCCA
Vatican City
THE VATICAN is a famously male-dominated institution, but on at least one count, it’s beaten the secular world in creating opportunities for women.
Pope Francis’s decision to appoint Barbara Jatta as director of the Vatican Museums in December makes it the first of the world’s most important museums to have a woman at the helm— ahead of theMetropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum,
the Prado Museum and the Louvre.
Her appointment reflects a little- known tradition of innovation that belies the Vatican’s image as hidebound and backward, says Ms. Jatta, 54. She intends to exploit the museums’ technological expertise, as she also confronts major financial, administrative and crowding challenges.
It is an especially important appointment for the Vatican, given that the museums are a major source of revenue, with about €300 million ($323 million) in gross revenues a year and at least €40 million in profits.
“I benefit somewhat from the desire of Pope Francis to show openness in so many ways,” said Ms. Jatta, who oversaw the Vatican Library’s collection of rare prints before starting her current job in December. “But I hope I was chosen because of what I did in the Vatican over the last 20 years.” The modern spirit of the Vatican Museums, today the home of the Sistine Chapel with its famous Michelangelo frescoes, as well as works of art by Raphael, Giotto and Titian, is rooted in history. Pope Julius II shared his sculpture collection with scholars and poets in the early 16th century, and Pope Clement XIV opened the doors to a wider public in 1771—both rare gestures for their times.
A major focus for Ms. Jatta will be sustaining the technological prowess of the museum, which boasts eight conservation labs and more than 150 full- and part-time restoration experts undertaking advanced work with lasers, nanotechnology and bio-technology.
The extraordinary breadth of the museum’s collections—which range from ceramics to tapestries to mosaics—offers its technicians and conservators the opportunity to find new ways of caring for everything “from Indian feathers to hair in the Ethnological Museum to Japanese tatami,” Ms. Jatta says. “I don’t think there is another example…of so many and such highly qualified restorers and other professionals working with many different types of material,” says the new director.
For instance, the Vatican has conducted work in using essential oils to protect sculptures and other stone works from biological degradation, says Admir Masic, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Mr. Masic collaborated with museum staff in the early stages of the 2008-2014 restoration of the 17th-century colonnade built by Gian Lorenzo Bernini around St. Peter’s Square.