Contrary to what you might think, the golden age of demons was not just in the medieval period, but also on the eve of the modern era, when the Inferno and its torments monopolized the imaginations of Europeans terrorized by the thought of the devil. It was in the heart of the Christian West, in Germany and in the Netherlands, that the arts were best able to articulate the fear of the devil. Artists like Schongauer, Bosch, Brueghel, Dürer, Pieter Huys, Patinir, and Met de Bles, along with hundreds of followers and disciples, depicted demonic incursions into the earthly world with the aim of instigating men to sin and the heroic resistance of the faithful, fashioning images of unrestrained creativity. 

One of the central figures in the narratives linked to the world of temptation is St Anthony the Abbot, a 3rd-century Egyptian hermit monk who retreated to the desert to dedicate himself to prayer, abstinence, and meditation. The legend of St Anthony, transmitted by Jacobus de Varagine, stands out from those of other hermit saints for its abundance of demons who make repeated, obsessive assaults on the saint. These emissaries of Satan took various forms, appearing as ferocious beasts, giants, imps or repulsive reptiles, tormenting Anthony and encouraging him to indulge in the worst vices: pride, through an angelic voice praising his perfect life; gluttony, by replacing his scanty food with delicious dishes; laziness, by causing his eyelids to droop during his night vigils; lust, inflamed by leading naked women before him; and avarice, by piling heaps of gold around his feet.

Scenes depicting Anthony’s sufferings and his visions were widely diffused in art between the 15th and 16th centuries, becoming highly requested by northern European patrons and then throughout the West. The theme returned in vogue in the late 19th century, in the wake of Symbolism, and was later interpreted in an oneiric, expressionist key throughout the 20th century.