  We have undertaken a study of the globular cluster (GC) systems of a large
sample of elliptical and spiral galaxies in order to test predictions of galaxy
formation models. Here we present results for the giant Virgo elliptical NGC
4472 (M49). The galaxy was observed in 3 filters (BVR) using the Mosaic Imager
on the Kitt Peak 4-m telescope. Our images roughly double the radial coverage
of previous CCD observations of NGC 4472. We have combined the Mosaic data with
spectroscopic data and HST data in order to fully characterize the level of
contamination in our GC sample. The radial profile of the GC system is fit
fairly well by a de Vaucouleurs law out to 17 arc minutes (~80 kpc), but the
profile falls slightly below the de Vaucouleurs law between 17 and 23 arc
minutes. The bimodal color distribution observed in past studies appears in our
data. We find a small metallicity gradient in the inner 8 arc minutes of the GC
system due to the increasing ratio of blue to red clusters. The gradient
vanishes, however, when the entire radial extent of the data is taken into
account. We estimate a total of 5,900 GCs in NGC 4472 out to 23 arc minutes,
yielding a specific frequency of 3.6+/-0.6 within this radius. This value is
smaller than that found by previous studies of NGC 4472. We examine the
implications of these results with regard to predictions made by four galaxy
formation models, and find that all four models have at least one inconsistency
with the data. [abridged]
