The conservation of Bartolommeo Bonghi, a portrait by Giovanni Battista Moroni, the leading Lombard painter of the third quarter of the sixteenth century, presented a challenging and unusual dilemma: how to approach early additions - in this case an inscription and coat of arms - painted in after the artist's death. These additions conveyed significant information but substantially altered the painting's composition. The decision to remove them, made jointly by conservation and curatorial departments, was based on careful consideration of aesthetic, historical, and technical issues.