**SAINT ANTHONY ABBOT, saint.** — Described by St. Athanasius as the founder of asceticism, he was born around the year 250 in Coma (now Qeman) on the western bank of the Nile in Middle Egypt, to Christian parents of considerable wealth. Having been orphaned at the age of eighteen along with a younger sister, he soon felt called to a more perfect life, which he decided to follow after distributing his goods to the poor and entrusting his sister to a community of virgins. Leaving his native village, he first settled in an ancient Egyptian tomb, then in an abandoned castle across the Nile near Aphroditopolis. In this new dwelling, he remained enclosed for twenty years without going out, during which time he suffered terrible temptations from the devil.
The ever-increasing number of visitors, especially those who wished to follow his example, led him to open his retreat, which in the surrounding area became populated with hermits, of whom Anthony became the father and teacher. Such a movement probably dates back to 305. During the persecution of Maximinus (311), Anthony went to Alexandria to assist the Christians and comfort the martyrs. Once calm had returned, he resumed his austerities, making them even harsher, and isolated himself completely near the Red Sea, three days' journey from his previous dwelling. At intervals, he returned to his disciples on the Nile; but visitors, drawn by his miracles, managed to trace his new abode.
In 335, he returned to Alexandria at the pressing invitation of St. Athanasius to combat the Arians. The entry of the famous hermit into the city bore fruit, and numerous heretics were brought back to the faith. Soon, however, he returned to his retreat on the Red Sea, where he lived for another twenty years. Shortly before his death, he foretold his imminent end to two disciples, who had been permitted to share his life during the last fifteen years, and from them he exacted the promise not to reveal to anyone the place of his burial so as to keep it hidden from honors. From the fifth century, liturgical tradition fixed the day of his death on January 17. According to legend, his tomb was discovered in 565, and his body was taken to Alexandria, then to Constantinople (635), whence the relics passed to France in the 9th–10th centuries at St-Didier-de-la-Motte, and from there to St-Julien of Arles in 1491.
Anthony’s life was woven with miracles and struggles with the devil, which made him one of the most popular saints of antiquity. He took a lively part in the affairs of the Church in Egypt and was in contact with St. Athanasius and Constantine the Great. Yet Anthony’s importance is even greater with regard to eremitical life, which under his influence took on a new direction, namely the formation of eremitical communities in which one lived either in solitude or in groups of two to ten, with a similar way of life and common practices, though without a fixed rule. His fame as a saint soon crossed the borders of Egypt; the Greek Church began to venerate him from the fifth century, but it was in the West that Anthony’s cult developed greatly in the Middle Ages. He became the saint of the people, to whom recourse was made in times of epidemics, especially against the so-called “St. Anthony’s fire,” against the plague, and other contagious diseases.
The numerous confraternities established in his honor (the principal one being founded in France on the site of his relics, which gave rise to the Order of the Antonines), the poorhouses and hospitals dedicated to him, as well as the extraordinarily rich Antonine iconography, all bear witness to the extraordinary popularity enjoyed by the holy hermit in the West.
Manuscript tradition has preserved under Anthony’s name two small collections of letters: the first containing seven, the second twenty (the latter including the former) (PG 40, 978–99; 999–1066). The relationship of dependence between the two is unclear, and the manuscript source of the smaller collection remains obscure. Today, it tends to be identified with the seven letters of Anthony written in Coptic and translated into Greek, of which St. Jerome speaks (De Vir. ill., 88).
Anthony’s life was written by St. Athanasius in 357 according to some, in 365–73 according to others, and translated into Latin by Evagrius of Antioch in 388 (both texts in PG 26, 835–976). The objections raised by Weingarten (Der Ursprung des Mönchtums, in Zeitsch. für Kirchengeschichte, 1 [1877]) against the Athanasian document were refuted by A. Eichhorn (Athanasii de vita ascetica testimonia collecta, Halle 1888) and J. Mayer (in Der Katholik, 1 and 2 [1888]), and more recently by Loop, Reitzenstein, Schwartz, and others. The authenticity of the *Vita Antonii* is now commonly accepted by scholars as beyond dispute.
Iconography. — Anthony is always depicted as an old man with a long beard and a wide habit, with or without a hood. His principal attributes are: the hermit’s staff, often T-shaped, the bell, and the pig, which recall certain privileges of the Order of the Antonines, founded in 1095; the torch or flames, which allude to St. Anthony as the protector against the disease known as “St. Anthony’s fire,” as well as against erysipelas in livestock. The greatest number of representations of Anthony comes from late German Gothic painting, sculpture, and woodcut; in Italy, he also appears frequently in the figurative arts, especially in works of a popular tone. The most significant models, from the late 14th century onward, include works by Bartolo di Fredi, Pisanello, Filippo Lippi, Alvise Vivarini, Gregorio Schiavone, Moretto, and others.
Among the most frequently represented episodes of his life is that of his manifold temptations, which well suited the exuberant imagination of Northern artists; see, as major examples, Schongauer’s engraving, the paintings by Bosch, Brueghel, and Teniers. For Italy, one may cite the fresco by the school of A. Gaddi in the Castellani Chapel in Santa Croce, Florence, and the two panels by Bernardo Parentino in the Doria Pamphili Collection. The highest glorification of St. Anthony is found in the Isenheim Altarpiece, which unites Grünewald’s well-known paintings (*The Temptations; The Visit to St. Paul the Hermit; The Image of the Saint*) with the monumental statue by Niccolò da Hagenau. Sometimes, with clear allusion to the shrine of Compostela, he is depicted with St. James, to whom Anthony entrusts a pilgrim.
Popular Traditions
The popular cult of St. Anthony the Abbot is one of the most widespread and intensely manifested, and one of the richest in expressions. He is credited with the protection of pigs and domestic animals in general. Therefore, on the day of his feast, the blessing of animals takes place. Donkeys, mules, horses, sheep, goats, cats, monkeys, parrots, etc. are brought to the church by their owners to be blessed. In Rome, for centuries the ceremony has taken place in the church of St. Eusebius on the Esquiline: in ancient times, a parade of teams or pairs of horses (up to 24) harnessed to a single carriage would take place; even the Pope would send the horses from the Apostolic Palaces, all adorned “with small pennants on their heads, with roses on their bridles, with silk reins” (P. Bresciani). In Pinerolo, after the blessing, the gallop is still celebrated today, a kind of race of barberi, a remnant of a custom of which traces are also found in other regions, for example in Abruzzo. In Turin, the ceremony took place in the now vanished church of St. Anthony the Abbot, and it was customary for the friars of the church to offer a pair of gloves to each metropolitan canon designated for the blessing.
Very widespread is the custom that the blessing priest receives an alms or a votive offering in kind or in precious objects (in some parts of France, for example, a piece of lard which is then auctioned off; in Novoli [Lecce], gold watches) and distributes a picture of the Saint and the well-known St. Anthony’s loaves, which are considered miraculous for the healing of animals when they are fed to them when they are sick, while the image is affixed in the stable, always for protective purposes. In some places, instead of the loaves, a St. Anthony’s cake is distributed, which has the same attributes. In the countryside, it is the rule for the priest to go to bless the animals in the stables.
Another typical form of popular cult is given by the bonfires of St. Anthony, piles of wood collected through questing, or otherwise formed through collective participation, and which in some places reach enormous proportions: piles that are set on fire on the evening of the vigil. From the bonfire, which burns for several days, everyone takes some ash or coal, which they then keep. Linked to these manifestations are both the beliefs in the miraculous cures attributed to the Saint, of the plague and especially of the *Ephes Zoster*, still commonly called sacred fire or St. Anthony’s fire, and the legends that tell of St. Anthony the Abbot placed as guardian of hell and, by deceiving the devils, liberator of souls. In these relations between St. Anthony and fire, some scholars have seen elements of affinity with the myth of Prometheus, an opinion authoritatively contested and, in any case, subject to revision. Still in many countries, the ancient custom prevails of raising, at the expense of the community, the pig of St. Anthony, which is then auctioned off to fund the feast. This feast has had such great importance in some places in Eastern Europe that it has given its name to the month of January (in Istro-Romanian, *antosniaku* “January”).
St. Anthony is invoked for finding lost things and as the protector of young girls.
Closely connected with the various manifestations of the cult are the popular poems that have flourished around the figure of the thaumaturge. Some of these, mostly of a lyrical nature, are sung on the eve of the feast by groups of young people who go from house to house to beg, ringing a bell; sometimes a man disguised as St. Anthony joins the group, according to the attributes of popular iconography. More important are some narrative poems that were recited for protection against the plague or fire; ancient texts remain (14th century): two from northern Italy, one from central-southern Italy, as well as a popular song in hendecasyllables, still widely diffused, which shows certain relations with the ancient poems. All develop the hagiographic legend in its essential episodes. A sacred representation of St. Anthony the Abbot, extensive and with lively scenes, is among the most notable examples of Florentine Renaissance sacred theatre. *Vedi Tav. CXXII.*
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ANTONIO d’Altari
Painter, active in the second quarter of the 12th century, of whom a single signed work remains: the triptych in the Chapter Museum of Santa Maria Maggiore in Altari. On the basis of stylistic affinities, some frescoes in churches of the territory of Altari can be attributed to him, all revealing the same influence of Gentile da Fabriano.