Around 1230, two noble widows established a religious community in Colmar at a place called “sub tilia” – under the lime trees, or like in German “unter (den) linden”. The present buildings and cloister were built from around the 1260s. A major centre of Rhenish mysticism, the Dominican monastery underwent intense artistic, spiritual, and economic development in the following centuries. The convent was dissolved during the French Revolution and the buildings were taken over by the town of Colmar. In 1849, the former convent became the Unterlinden Museum, but the lime trees are still there, unchanged, on the banks of the Sinn canal.