1/10: @AnnaHenrietta2 reminded me this (Jan 17) is St Antony Abbot's feast. Well-preserved mid-15c frescoes @MuseoMontefalco on a vault and supporting arch, attributed to Umbrian painter Andrea di Cagno, include 12 scenes. Let's have a look. #MedievalArt #SaintsInArt 
2/10: The Montefalco cycle includes the most familiar scenes of Antony's vocation and his later trials in the desert. It opens (as in the Golden Legend) with Antony inspired by the Gospel reading at Mass to distribute his wealth to the poor #monasticism #ChristianArt
3/10: Here is another version of those two scenes in the late 14th century frescoes by the Florentine painter Niccolò di Tommaso at the Chiesa del Tau, Pistoia #MedievalArt #Trecento #painting
4/10: At @MuseoMontefalco we also see famous scenes of Antony's Temptations: he is assaulted by #demons and a #devil tempts him in the guise of a horned, hoofed woman. Was her face later rubbed out? An #angel cleanses him with holy water. #SaintsInArt
5/10: We don't see some well-known scenes from Athanasius' Life (but not in the Golden #Legend), like Antony entrusting his sister to a community of virgins, or searching out others leading an ascetic life, both shown in #StainedGlass at Chartres. #MedievalArt #monasticism
6/10: The Montefalco cycle adds several stories based on the 10th century (or earlier) #Legend of Patras and widely known in 14th c Italian art and devotional literature. These include Antony's flight from the monastery at Patras. #SaintsInArt #hagiography
8/10: The most memorable scene @MuseoMontefalco shows Antony's graphic #vision of the torments of the souls in hell, a subject certainly consistent with his warnings about eternal punishment in Athanasius' Life and early texts. #SaintsInArt #MedievalArt
9/10: For the Life of Antony in medieval Italian art, literature, and devotion, I recommend (and used) Dennis Dutschke, "The Translation of St Antony from the Egyptian Desert to the Italian City," Aevum 68 (1994), 499-549.
10/10: And thanks to @MuseoMontefalco for a wonderful visit to the gallery and church of S Francesco, a fascinating, well-presented museum in a beautiful town of #Umbria. Don't leave Montefalco without having a meal (or several), the best antidote to a day of ascetic discipline.
