Art world divided on 'Michelangelo' cross

ROME, June 6 (UPI) -- Art experts are divided over the authenticity of a small carving of Christ bought by the Italian government after it was attributed to Michelangelo.

The Italian government last December paid a Turin art dealer $4.5 million for the limewood carving, which first publicly appeared in 2004, ANSA, the Italian news agency, reported Saturday.

The Audit Court of Lazio opened an investigation into the purchase after the carving recently was pronounced a fake by Naples University art history professor Tomaso Montari and other international art experts.

"There are at least another dozen or so crosses out there made in a similar fashion and this was a style common to the studios of Florence at the end of the 1400s," Montari told The Daily Telegraph.

Art experts at the Vatican and in Florence, Siena and Perugia said they examined the cross extensively before attributing the carving to Renaissance master Michelangelo. Those experts, including Vatican Museums Director Antonio Paolucci, tentatively dated the carving to 1495, when Michelangelo was 20, ANSA reported.