Meeting of Saint Francis and Saint Dominic

The Ospedale di San Paolo, a thirteenth-century hospital building on the Piazza di Santa Maria Novella in Florence, was revamped in the mid-fifteenth century according to plans by Michelozzo (1396—1472). Between 1489 and 1496 Andrea della Robbia produced several glazed terracotta reliefs for the decoration of the loggia, including a relief depicting a meeting between Saint Francis and Saint Dominic, destined for the lunette above the entrance to the church. The depiction brings to life an event that did supposedly take place: according to the tradition, the two saints, founders of their respective orders, met at the hospital around 1222. The intimacy with which the two men — one dressed in the white tunic of the Dominicans and the other in the brown tunic of the Franciscans — greet each other symbolises the amicable relationship between the two monastic orders.