The Jatta National Museum is one of the very rare examples of a nineteenth- century private collection that has remained unchanged in its original museographic concept. Inside it is possible to retrace the architectural forms, the furnishings and the ideas that presided over its realization during the nineteenth century. illustrious members of the Jatta family: the two founders, the brothers Giovanni senior and Giulio Jatta ; the latter's wife, Giulia Viesti; Giovanni junior, son of Giulio and author of the "Catalog of the collection" (Naples 1869). The unchanged relationship between content and container, preserved until today, is emblematic of the cultural climate of the nineteenth century . The contribution of the Museum for the reconstruction of the social and civil history of the city of Ruvo in that period was officially sanctioned with the acquisition of the assets of the Italian State, through two deeds of sale, respectively of 19 December 1990 and 10 April 1991. Museum is located in the nineteenth-century Palazzo Jatta , located in the historic center of Ruvo di Puglia. The exhibition itinerary was organized on the ground floor of the building, within four rooms. Here, in fact, the structure was designed in such a way as to be able to house a collection of over two thousand archaeological finds , giving life to the nucleus of one of the richest and most famous Apulian museums. In the first room, in which there is an inscription in Latin reminding the founders of the Museum, there are mainly terracotta vases with geometric decorations dating back to the Peucet age of the 7th and 6th centuries BC.

The second room contains about 700 Greek or local red-figure vases on a black background. Among these, a large mask krater from the 4th century BC, the work of the Baltimore painter . In the third room, containing over four hundred pieces, the white marble bust of Giovanni Jatta junior stands out, who founded the Museum. The fourth room collects the most precious finds. Here too there is a marble bust, that of Giovanni Jatta senior, in toga. The most important vase kept here is that of Talos , a giant whose job was to protect the island of Crete.