ANTONIANI OF VIENNE. — This Order is connected with the epidemics of "holy fire," so frequent in the Middle Ages. The "holy fire" or "fire of St. Anthony," a disease now known as "gangrenous ergotism," was an intoxication caused by the use of bread made from flour infected with ergotized rye, and which manifested itself in gangrene of the extremities, producing fatal mutilations. Towards the end of the 10th century and at the beginning of the 11th, a terrible epidemic of this disease broke out in France. Some of the sick, who prayed to St. Anthony the Abbot, are said to have been miraculously healed; hence the saint came to acquire a particular thaumaturgical protection over this disease. A certain Gaston, lord of Vienne, whose son had been healed through the saint's intercession, founded a hospital near the priory of La Motte-Saint-Didier for the care of the sick of this kind. A first congregation of seven laymen then arose (1095), which was later transformed by Boniface VIII into a religious Order under the Rule of St. Augustine. The Order, now extinct, was called the Canons Regular of St. Anthony of Viennois, but more commonly the "Antonians." They wore a black habit and a blue "T" on their cloak and on the left side of their garment. The hospitals of the Antonians soon increased in number and power, spreading throughout the world.
The mobile hospital of the Roman Curia was also entrusted to the Order of the Antonians. It had to follow the Curia in its various moves and also served those who were drawn to the place by the presence of the Pope. In Rome this hospital had its seat in front of the Lateran Patriarchate, but later it was transferred to the Basilica of Liberius on the Esquiline, where there already existed a hospital, called St. Andrew's "de Piscina," which changed its title to that of St. Anthony. There were also Antonians' hospitals in Salerno, alongside those of the Benedictines.
Cf.: L. Cibrario, Descrizione storica degli Ordini religiosi, Naples 1847; S. De Renzi, Storia della medicina in Italia, Naples 1849; V. ANTILLE, Histoire de l’Ordre hospitalier de s. Antoine, Paris 1883; A. Canezza, Gli arcospedali di Roma nella città cittadina, nella storia e nell’arte, Rome 1933; A. Pazzini, I santi della storia della medicina, Rome 1937. Adalberto Pazzini