The Via delle Belle Donne--most poetically named of Florentine streets--leads hence into the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella. On the way, where five roads meet, is the Croce al Trebbio, with symbols of the four Evangelists below the Crucifix. It marks the site of one of St Peter Martyr's fiercest triumphs over the Paterini, one of those "marvellous works" for which Savonarola, in his last address to his friars, complains that the Florentines had been so ungrateful towards his Order. But the story of the Dominicans of Santa Maria Novella is not one of persecution, but of peace-making. They played at times as noble a part in mediæval Florence as their brethren of San Marco were to do in the early Renaissance; and later, during the great siege, they took up the work of Fra Girolamo, and inspired the people to their last heroic defence of the Republic. Opposite Santa Maria Novella is the Loggia di San Paolo, designed by Brunelleschi, and erected in 1451, shortly after his death. The coloured terracotta reliefs, by Andrea della Robbia, include two fine portraits of governors of the hospital (not of the Della Robbia themselves, as frequently stated). The relief in a lunette over the door on the right, representing the meeting of St Francis and St Dominic, is one of Andrea's best works:-- "L'un fu tutto serafico in ardore, l'altro per sapienza in terra fue di cherubica luce uno splendore. Dell'un dirò, però che d'ambedue si dice l'un pregiando, qual ch'uom prende, perchè ad un fine fur l'opere sue."[51] [51] "The one was all seraphic in his ardour, the other by his wisdom was on earth a splendour of cherubic light. "Of one will I discourse, because of both the two he speaketh who doth either praise, which so he will; for to one end their works." --Wicksteed's translation, _Paradiso_ xi.