Rome Arts: Is Michelangelo Cross by Authentic Hand of Michelangelo?

Art experts in Rome are divided over the authenticity of a small carving of Christ bought by the Italian government after it was attributed to Michelangelo.
A Turin art dealer was paid by the Italian government $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 in London.
It is well known that all the artists during the Renaissance had studios full of working artists replicating the master artist's designs, much like a fashion house today may be full of young designers. 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. So the mystery remains, was Michelangelo cross created by the authentic hand of Michelangelo?
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