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
Bagatti Valsecchi Museum - Milan,
Italy