It is a pictorial glorification of the Dominican order triumphant; with a vivid reminder of the origin of the word Dominican in the episode of the wolves (or heretics) being attacked by black and white dogs, the Canes Domini, or hounds of the Lord.

The "Mornings in Florence" should here be consulted again, for Ruskin made a very thorough and characteristically decisive analysis of these paintings, which, whether one agrees with it or not, is profoundly interesting.

Poor old Vasari, who so patiently described them too and named a number of the originals of the portraits, is now shelved, and from both his artists, Simone Martini and Taddeo Gaddi, has the authorship been taken by modern experts.

Some one, however, must have done the work.

The Duomo as represented here is not the Duomo of fact, which had not then its dome, but of anticipation.
Opposite, we see a representation of the triumph of the greatest of the Dominicans, after its founder, S.Thomas Aquinas, the author of the "Summa Theologiae," who died in 1274.