They make us comprehend not merely the stern and savage temper of the Middle Ages, but the intense and fiery ebullition of the Renaissance, into which, as by a sudden liberation, so much imprisoned pent-up force was driven.
A different but scarcely less important phase of mediaeval thought is imaged in the frescoes of the Cappella degli Spagnuoli in S.Maria Novella.[135] Dogmatic theology is here in the ascendant.

While S.Francis bequeathed a legend of singular suavity and beauty, overflowing with the milk of charity and mildness, to the Church, S.Dominic assumed the attitude of the saint militant and orthodox.

Dante's words about him-- L'amoroso drudo[136] Della fede Cristiana, il santo atleta, Benigno a' suoi, ed a' nemici crudo, omit nothing that is needed to characterise the impression produced upon the Christian world by this remorseless foe of heresy, this champion of the faith who dealt in butcheries and burnings.

S.Francis taught love; S.
Dominic taught wrath: and both, perhaps, were needed for the safety of the mediaeval Church--the one by resuscitating the spirit of the Gospels, the other by resisting the intrusion of alien ideals ere the time for their triumph had arrived.

What the painters of these frescoes undertook to delineate for the Dominicans of Florence, was the fabric of society sustained and held together by the action of inquisitors and doctors issued from their order.