But out of these cloisters, on the right, opens the so-called Spanish Chapel--the Cappella degli Spagnuoli--one of the rarest buildings in Italy for the student of mediæval doctrine. Here, as in the Strozzi Chapel, we are in the grasp of the same mighty spirit that inspired the _Divina Commedia_ and the _De Monarchia_, although the actual execution falls far below the design. The chapel--designed by Fra Jacopo Talenti in 1320--was formerly the chapter-house of the convent; it seems to have acquired the title of Spanish Chapel in the days of Duke Cosimo I., when Spaniards swarmed in Florence and were wont to hold solemn festival here on St. James' day. The frescoes that cover its ceiling and walls were executed about the middle of the fourteenth century--according to Vasari by Simone Martini and Taddeo Gaddi, though this seems highly doubtful. Their general design is possibly due to Fra Jacopo Passavanti. They set forth the Dominican ideal, the Church and the world as the Friars Preachers conceived of them, even as Giotto's famous allegories at Assisi show us the same through Franciscan glasses. While Orcagna painted the world beyond the grave in honour of the Angelical Doctor, these artists set forth the present world as it should be under his direction and that of his brothers, the "hounds of the Lord," _domini canes_, who defended the _orto cattolico_. The vaulted roof is divided into four segments; and the picture in each segment corresponds to a great fresco on the wall below. On the wall opposite, as we enter, is represented the supreme event of the world's history, from which all the rest starts and upon which the whole hinges, the Passion of Christ, leading up to the Resurrection on the roof above it. On the segment of the roof over the door is the Ascension, and on the wall below was shown (now much damaged) how the Dominicans received and carried out Christ's last injunction to His disciples. In the left segment of the roof is the Descent of the Holy Spirit; and beneath it, on the wall, the result of this outpouring upon the world of intellect is shown in the triumph of Philosophy in the person of Aquinas, its supreme mediæval exponent. In the right segment is the Ship of Peter; and, on the wall below, is seen how Peter becomes a fisher of men, the triumph of his Church under the guidance of the Dominicans. These two great allegorical frescoes--the triumph of St. Thomas and the _civil briga_ of the Church--are thus a more complete working out of the scheme set forth more simply by Orcagna in his altar piece in the Strozzi Chapel above--the functions delegated by Christ to Peter and St. Thomas--the power of the Keys and the doctrine of the _Summa Theologica_.