The Temptation of Saint Anthony (Schongauer)

The Temptation of Saint Anthony is an engraving by Martin Schongauer, probably created c. 1470–1475, depicting a popular scene in 15th-century art. In it, grotesque demons swarm around Saint Anthony the Great, bursting with movement and energy as the saint calmly resists their temptations or blows. The saint is shown with some of his characteristic attributes, dressed in a monk's habit and cowl, carrying a staff with a tau-shaped handle and with a bound girdle book hanging from his belt. The literary source from which this image derives is debated. The image could depict chapter 65 from Athanasius's Life of Saint Anthony, where the hermit has a vision of himself floating through the air and undefined beings prevent him from ascending back to reality, or it could show the ninth chapter of the same Life, in which Saint Anthony is attacked by the devil in the form of animals and beasts in the Egyptian desert and is levitated in the air by his practice of rigorous asceticism.