Coming to Botticelli himself, Dr. Ulmann, following the tradition that designates Fra Filippo as Sandro's first master, feels obliged to find a great resemblance to Filippo in his pupil's earliest works. As he can see no such resemblance in any of the paintings presumably early among those already ascribed to Botticelli, he concludes that none of these are early enough, that there must be earlier works -- in fact, that a Madonna in the Innocenti at Florence is the missing link. “This Madonna,” he says, “ascribed to Filippo, and really very close to him, is not by Filippo himself, and not by Fra Diamante. It must therefore be by Botticelli”; as if a painter of such renown as Fra Filippo did not have other assistants and imitators, such as we know him to have had in Francesco Pesellino, Giusto d'Andrea, Jacopo dell' Sellaio, and a host of others still.