Antonino Arata (28 October 1883 – 25 August 1948) was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who worked in the diplomatic service of the Holy See for twenty years, principally in Eastern Europe.
[1] His first assignment as a junior member of the diplomatic corps was in the Nunciature to Czechoslovakia, newly established upon the creation of the new nation in the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
[2] In the summer of 1931, as the result of a dispute over Church influence in education, the government of Lithuania declared the Holy See's representative there, Apostolic Internuncio Riccardo Bartoloni persona non grata.
[2][4] On 12 July 1935, Pope Pius XI appointed him Apostolic Nuncio to both Latvia and Estonia as well as titular archbishop of Sardes.
[citation needed] After the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic States, the nunciatures in Latvia and Estonia were forced to close and Arata returned to Rome at the end of August 1940.