ROME—A naked breast in a reproduction of a Giovanni Battista Tiepolo painting has been covered up at Palazzo Chigi, the Italian Prime Minister's residence, the Times (London) reports. The painting, Truth Revealed by Time, has served as the backdrop for Silvio Berlusconi's press conferences since his recent reelection in May, but the bare breast of the female figure in the work was recently covered by what looks like a gauze tunic.

Italian newspaper La Stampa suggested that the cover-up was applied digitally and said, "Perhaps the Prime Minister's staff feared that the attention of journalists was being drawn to the breast over his left shoulder rather than to what he was saying." A spokesman for Berlusconi, Paolo Bonaiuti, said that the female staff at Palazzo Chigi had asked for the "re-touching."

Some Italian papers compared the move to the Vatican's censorship of the nudes in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes in the 16th century. Vittorio Sgarbi, art critic and former deputy culture minister, called the idea "madness," adding: "I can only hope Berlusconi did not know about it."