Attributed to Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta

Until the 19th century the Borghese inventories listed this Saint Paul as a work by Michelangelo. The apostle kneels on clouds against a gold ground, seen from below, holding a scroll for his letters, and his heavy, muscular build explains the old guess. Critics then moved it to Daniele da Volterra, Michelangelo's close follower, and to an unnamed Roman painter under his influence, and most now place it with Girolamo Siciolante da Sermoneta.

Siciolante came from Sermoneta, a hill town south of Rome, and made his career in Roman churches. In 1548 and 1549 he finished frescoes in San Luigi dei Francesi that Perino del Vaga, Raphael's former assistant, had left incomplete. His figures combine Michelangelo's weight with the softer colour of Raphael's followers. Attributed to records that majority view while admitting the question is still open. The canvas, 136 by 77 centimetres, came to the family through Francesco Borghese around 1610, and its companion, a saint on the same gold ground, is catalogued under a different painter.