The origins of the prestigious Unterlinden Monastery are modest. Around 1230, two noble Alsatian women, Agnes of Mittelnheim and Agnes of Hergheim, decided to found a convent. With the agreement of the prior of the Dominicans of Strasbourg, they settled in a house in the northern suburb of Colmar, on the banks of the river Sinn. Built in the Gothic style, the cloister and the monastery church are considered to be seminal buildings that influenced the entire architecture of the Upper Rhine mendicant orders. Today, the convent, now the Unterlinden Museum, houses the largest collection of Rhenish art in France.