The Dominican order was founded in Bologna by Brother Dominic, a Spanish Benedictine canon. Twelve years later, in 1232, a religious community led by two noble Alsatian women, Agnès de Mittelnheim and Agnès de Hergheim, settled in Colmar. The same year, the nuns took the Dominican Habit. The emblem of the order is a dog (“Domini canis”, or dog of the Lord) holding an arch symbolising truth; a lily, a star or a book are at its side. In the 13th and 14th centuries, the convent of St John the Baptist in Unterlinden developed into a centre of learning and an intellectual centre whose influence spread throughout the Rhine region.