Saint Anthony Abbot

Saint Anthony (c. 251-356 A.D.), a Christian monk who lived an unusually long life during the reign of Constantine, is identified by his traditional attribute, a pig, which lies at his feet as a reference to his purported taming of a wild boar while performing a life of seclusion in the desert. The saint wears a girdled, full-length robe with a hood covering his shoulders as well as a stole whose stiff, pleated fabric falls vertically down the front of his body and terminates at the level of his knees in a subtle chevron.

The life of Saint Anthony, recorded by Saint Athanasius, is one of devotion in the face of temptation and sin. When he was twenty years old, he attended a church sermon, during which he heard the preacher state that ‘If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast and give to the poor’. From this moment on he vowed to lead a life of humility, charity, and poverty, selling his possessions and taking up the life of a hermit. He was most commonly associated during the Middle Ages with ‘Saint Anthony’s fire’, a condition now known as ergotism that afflicted wide swathes of the European population during the period, on account of the growth of ergot spores on wheat and rye, and for whose treatment a number of hospitals were founded from the late eleventh century onwards by the Order of the Brothers of Saint Anthony.