It was meant to be a careful restoration, a respectful return to glory for a 2000-year-old Roman mosaic in the heart of Milan. Instead, the ancient bull has emerged looking like a cartoon character from a children's television programme. The internet, as it does, has had its say: the creature now resembles a floppy-eared dog or a bewildered cow with a bad perm. The hashtag #MilanBull is trending for all the wrong reasons.
This is not an isolated incident. Italy has a recent history of restoration disasters: the botched 2012 attempt on a 16th-century fresco of the Virgin Mary in a Spanish church, the 2018 makeover of a 17th-century wooden statue of St George that left him looking like a Disney figurine. Each time, the outcry is swift and brutal. Each time, the question arises: how can a country with such a magnificent artistic heritage get it so wrong?
The answer lies in a complex web of underfunding, lack of oversight and a cultural attitude that sometimes prizes speed over precision. In Britain, our approach is different. The National Trust and English Heritage operate under strict guidelines. Every scrape of paint is documented. Every decision is debated by committees of experts. It is slow, bureaucratic and expensive. But it works.
Consider the restoration of the 16th-century Thornham Parva Retable in Suffolk, a rare surviving medieval altarpiece. Conservators spent years on it, using tiny cotton swabs and distilled water. The result is a piece that looks as it might have done in the 1300s, not a cartoonish pastiche. Or the careful work on the Victorian murals at the Houses of Parliament, where specialist cleaners removed layers of grime without damaging the original paint.
The Milan bull may be a laughing stock, but it is also a warning. When we rush, when we cut corners, when we treat the past as a canvas for our own inventions, we lose something precious. The Italians might have the grander artistic tradition, but in conservation, the British sensibility of slow, careful respect has won the day. The bull's new face is a face of folly. Let us hope it serves as a lesson, not a template.
