Finding International Jobs for American WorkersSorry to have taken so long to respond...been terribly busy at the museum (our exhibit on Caravaggio's Medusa is about to close: http://www.museobagattivalsecchi.org). 

A quick and painful answer to a complicated and urgent question is: stay put. 

If you think that salaries are low and that museum jobs are hard to come by in the States, it's nothing compared to Italy (to be fair, all salaries tend to be lower in Italy...the "fun" part is, that the costs are higher, too). 

Similar to the UK response I just saw, to work in a public museum in Italy (that is, IF they have an EU-wide exam-competition--a "bando di concorso"--to which hundreds, if not thousands of equally, or more qualified, candidates come for one or three jobs) one must be an EU citizen. In addition to being highly qualified and with good Italian, you have to have a bit of luck, a lot of patience and stick-to-it-iveness, a long period to put in free labor as a "beginner," a willingness to cope with insecure job conditions and pitiful contracts, and a duck-like back to let the disappointment roll off when Someone's student "wins" the competition, anyway. 

It might be possible to skip the "bando" phase with a private museum. However, there are much much fewer of those.

If you are interested in/able to do a "stage" (i.e., extended unpaid internship), then you will find many more doors open, and it just MIGHT turn into a possible way to get an insecure ad hoc contract that just MIGHT be renewed for the following year, and so on and so forth. In a public institution that, by law, must have the exam-competitions, if they love you enough, they just might be able to write the job qualifications for the "bando" in such a way that you, and only you (hopefully), would qualify, but that's unlikely. Still, it's possible that a tailor-made "bando" would be helpful in achieving this dream.

You might have to change your goals, but try to isolate what the important factors are in the work that interests you, and focus on those.

Star Meyer
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http://www.museobagattivalsecchi.org
Bagatti Valsecchi Museum - Milan, Italy

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