his son Raffaello Botticini, who had a prolific activity of his own. Posthumous reputation In April 1968, Esquire Magazine imitated Botticini's Saint Sebastian at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a cover shot of Muhammad Ali. The cover was meant to relate the persecution of Saint Sebastian to that of Muhammad Ali, when we was stripped of his heavyweight boxing title for refusing to serve in the Vietnam War. George Lois, the magazine's art director at the time, came up with the idea and pitched it to Ali. Ali initially liked the connection between the suffering of the Saint and himself, but initially refused to pose as a Christian. He eventually agreed after speaking with the leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, and studying a postcard of Botticini's painting. The final product shows Ali with his hands bound behind him, arrows piercing his torso, his head tilted upwards in pain, in imitation of Botticini's saint. Notes References Neri di Bicci, Le ricordanze, 1453–1475, edited by Bruno Santi (Pisa, 1976), pp. 126–7, 333 (Italian) Poggi, Giovanni. "Della tavola di Francesco di Giovanni Botticini per la Compagnia di Sant’Andrea di Empoli’, Rivista d’arte, vol. 3 (1905): pp. 258–64. Kühnel, Ernst. Francesco Botticini. Strassburg: Heitz, 1906. Bacci, Piero. ‘Una tavola sconosciuta con San Sebastiano di Francesco di Giovanni Botticini’, Bollettino d'Arte, n.s. iv (1924–25): pp. 337–50. Degenhart, Bernhard. "Francesco Botticini," Old Master Drawings, vol. 5 (1931): p. 49. Van Marle, Raimond. The Development of Italian Schools of Painting, 19 vols (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1923-1938), vol. 13 (1931), pp. 390–427 Shaw, James Byam. "Francesco Botticini," Old Master Drawings, vol. 9 (1935): p. 58. Davies, Martin. The Earlier Italian Schools (London: National Gallery, 1951, [Second Edition, 1961), pp. 118–27 Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Florentine School (London: Phaidon, 1963), p. 39 Fahy, Everett. "Some Early Italian Pictures in the Gambier Parry Collection," The Burlington Magazine (1967): pp. 128–39. Bellosi, Luciano. "Intorno ad Andrea del Castagno," Paragone, vol. 9, no. 211 (1967): pp. 10–15. Berenson, Bernard. The Drawings of Florentine Painters, 2 vols (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1938, [Second Edition: 1969), vol. 1, p. 70, vol. 2, p. 61 Zeri, Federico and Gardner, Elizabeth. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Italian Paintings: Florentine School (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1971), pp. 125–7 Padoa Rizzo, Anna. "Per Francesco Botticini," Antichità Viva, vol. 5/6 (1976): pp. 3–19 King, Catherine. "The Dowry Farms of Niccolosa