Michelangelo's Conversion of St. Paul, in the Vatican's Pauline Chapel, had always troubled a Vatican official named Filippo Magi. The composition is dominated not by the prostrate St. Paul but by his horse, which Magi described as having "an expressionless and towering head similar to that of a mule." And curiously, the horse was bridled, though Michelangelo made a habit of painting horses without bridles. Last summer Magi persuaded a Vatican colleague, Professor Deoclecio Redig de Campos, that the strange beast might be the result of overpainting by some unknown bungler. De Campos...
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