Saint Anthony, the founder of monasticism, lived in the 3rd — 4th centuries. At the age of 20, after the death of his parents, he gave away his inheritance to the poor, placed his sister in the care of pious virgins and went alone into the Theban desert. Anthony’s wanderings brought him to the banks of the Nile, where he took up his abode in the ruins of an old fort. There, he was tempted by the devil and took the strictest vows. Anthony talked with pilgrims, who rarely visited him, through a narrow opening in the wall, and no one interfered with his hermit life.

Anthony broke his solitude on two occasions. The first time, to help the hermits, who followed him, to organize their lives and support Christians during their persecution by the Roman Emperor Maximinus. The second time, to denounce Arian heretics who claimed that venerable Anthony had joined their ranks. He died in his desert on the shores of the Red Sea at the age of 105.

The saint’s solitary struggle with demonic temptations and victory over them was a favorite subject during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Jacques Callot explored it in two of his works. The first engraving of a smaller size entitled ‘The Great Temptation of Saint Anthony’ was made by him in Florence around 1617. The second one was completed in Nancy in 1635. Its unofficial name is ‘The Second Temptation of Saint Anthony’ and it is the last large plate made by Callot.

The composition of the second plate is close to the first one, except that is more dramatic, has more precise details and elaborate images. The engraving features the ruins of a monastery and a cave engulfed in fire, epic-size Devil and a pack of monstrous creatures. In the periphery of the image, Saint Anthony assaulted by demons uses his crucifix to fend off the evil creatures.

Researchers believe that the religious subject is used by Callot as a pretext for antiwar and anticlerical satire. Two years earlier, the artist created the first ever pacifist statement — a series of large-size etchings entitled ‘The Great Miseries of War’. In ‘The Second Temptation’, fiends and demons are armed with muskets and arquebuses, they are marching off to fight Anthony in formations and with banners, landing on the shore, dragging their cannons. On the ruins of the sanctuary, a fiends’ choir is saying black mass with a donkey singing solo, and next to them, demons dressed in robes are reading a missal.