Meet the keepers of the Vatican's keys

Gianni Crea and his team open 1,400 rooms with 2,797 keys every morning

It's still dark outside when Gianni Crea pushes open the imposing entrance door to the Vatican Museums, a heavy ring of keys in his hand.

Soon he is moving through the deserted corridors to open the doors of some of the most visited galleries in the world. "There are exactly 2,797 keys.... Each one has between one and five copies, so we have more than 10,000," said the 51-year-old Roman, who knows every lock by heart.

From Bramante's spiral staircase to the Gallery of Maps, Crea's silhouette weaves its way through the museums, between marble sculptures, Roman antiquities and Renaissance paintings. In a few hours, thousands of tourists will be crowding into the museums' 1,400 rooms.