Director of the Vatican Museum, Barbara Jatta
Vatican Museum
From the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, visitors from around the globe have traveled far and wide to catch a glimpse of the Creation of Adam. The famed fresco by Michelangelo depicts contact between the hands of the Creator and those of Adam—a Vatican commission to emulate how the breath of life, according to the Catholic faith, began. But now, Adam and his Creator are met with an unfamiliar sight: Emptiness. The gallery, usually teeming with visitors to gawk at in reverence, is now practically void of the buzz of visitors due to Italy’s latest coronavirus confinement.
To see the normally crowded Vatican Museum nearly empty is a rarity afforded to few, but in the Covid-19 era, it can be this way for you too. Barbara Jatta, Director of the Vatican Museum since December 2016, the first female to hold the position, has led many incredible initiatives and restorations. The unearthing of two Raphael paintings, the digitalization of the Vatican library, the illumination system in the Raphael rooms, repainting of the Belvedere Palace with milk to name a few. But one of her latest projects began during the Covid-19 lockdown period, with the creation of digital Vatican tours, allowing people around the world to tour the Vatican Museum from the confines of our homes. “Incredibly, we had a peak of visitors on our social channels during the lockdown on our website and also on our YouTube and Instagram channels.”
The Vatican Museum website was overhauled during this last year, allowing it to become an infinitely richer source. “We worked hard to update the website and the online catalog with more specific descriptions of the works. The lockdown allowed for this. These updates will allow people to go deep and prepare for a visit to our museum.”
According to Vatican News, Jatta was a participant in the Italian virtual conference “More Museum,” which was created to give international directors and other experts of the arts a chance to discuss how museums will adjust to the current pandemic we are living through, how to best achieve the expected post Covid museum renaissance, and what new modes will be explored for showcasing art collections during a time in which experiencing art in a physical space has to be reinterpreted. The conference emphasized that using innovative platforms and technologies was the focus on how to achieve this.
Italy, the first western country to be hit hard by the Covid-19 virus, had a three-month lockdown during the peak of the pandemic last spring. A historic period that forced museums across the country to shut down. But it was also a period that allowed people who had never been to the Vatican Museum before, to get a glimpse of what it’s like through virtual tours. This summer, when Italy finally reopened, the newly inspired audience entered the physical museum, many for the first time, “we had a reduced ticket and I saw a different audience here. Many young people wanted to come and see the museum of their city but also young people from outside. This is great because you plant a seed in the young generation,” said Jatta on the next generation of curious visitors that were entering the Vatican more than ever before. The typical demographic that visits the museum is composed of older tourists.
The fascinating and mysterious Vatican Museum represents the fulcrum of the Holy See’s cultural and touristic identity which, in pre-Covid times, brings 6 million visitors a year, making it the 3rd most visited museum in the world. The walls of the museum stretch out to over seven kilometers worth of art, which include the Sistine Chapel, Raphael Rooms, and hundreds of masterpieces by artists like Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, and Giotto. Nearly nine hundred people are employed to maintain and upkeep the works, under the guidance of Director Barbara Jatta.
“No virtual visit can substitute the physical tour, but the virtual tour helps to go deeper to help know the collections better,” said Jatta. She explained that the Vatican Museum will be working on digitalizing the archives that are not on display, allowing for a general archive portal of the museum’s historic photo archive to be viewed by many more people than was previously possible.
During the lockdown period, the museum was not buzzing with its usual tourists, but instead, the halls roamed with restorers, and experts dedicated to working on restorations. “In December, the pope had to cancel a series of events and baptisms that take place in the Sistine Chapel, so we used that time to have restorations done during normal working hours. Usually, we do the work after hours which is very expensive to pay restorers, especially during these times,” said Jatta. There certainly is a silver lining during this period in terms of restoration and maintenance of museums across the world. “Editorial work never stopped; all departmental research activity, restoration activities, construction sites and laboratories are up and running.”
Jatta confirms that everyone who works in the Vatican has been vaccinated, “We work with much more serenity. We like this, so we can welcome people safely once again.”
In pre Covid times, the painstaking process of cleaning the Sistine Chapel, which is an annual task, takes an entire month after the tourists are gone, from 5:30 p.m. to midnight, a team from the Vatican comes into the Sistine Chapel to clean the frescoed walls and ceilings, checking for damage and report on the health of some of the world’s most treasured art.
“The Sistine Chapel is very clean now,” said Jatta.
Francesca Persegati, the Vatican Museum’s Chief Restorer for paintings has said that one of the main problems of the Sistine Chapel is humidity which is mostly caused by the flow of 25,000 visitors a day. “Our bodies are made mostly of water so when we visit the Sistine Chapel, we bring in humidity and heat, everyone heats the environment like an 80-watt bulb,” said Persegati.
In a sense, Jatta revealed that she, like many other international museum directors, have taken this rare moment, which has forced exhibitions and events to be suspended, into an opportunity, “to focus on the collections, on the maintenance of exhibition spaces and deposits, on the catalog, on research and publications” to take this rare time to share the Vatican Museum’s extensive works digitally and educate new audiences in preparation for the grand reopening to the public once again.
