Saint Anthony the Great and the Pig

Saint Antonio Abate (251 ca.-January 17 357), also called with many others name like “The Great”, “of fire”, “Anachorite”..., is recognised as the founder of the Christian monasticism. His cult has spread since his death in a wide and capillary way from East to West giving life to a countless forms of devotion and traditions.

His story is reconstructed through numerous sources, among the most important is the Vita Antonii work by Atanasio who has contributed significantly to the diffusion of the ideals of monastic and ascetic life.

Son of Christian farmers, was orphaned at a young age, liquidated all his possessions, so freeing himself from all possessions to undertake a route of prayer, solitude and poverty like did numerous anachorites when in the deserts around his city.

Tradition wants that his spiritual path was constantly tormented by the devil's presence. The Saint representations are many and varied depending on the cultural and pictorial tradition of origin , numerous in art for the wide devotion in each corner of the Christian world.

Portrait in old age with a long white beard, he walks with a bell in his hand or tied to his clothes and a pilgrim’s staff surmounted by a tau cross. Sometimes, at his side, the pig appears depicted as a meek and domesticated animal to which a bell is placed around the neck.

From a demoniac symbol of the temptations that Saint Antonio defeated with asceticism and prayer, the pig became over time the representative element of the bond between the Saint and domestic world.

For a long time the two traditions moved in parallel and, at times, coexisted, especially among the rural populations where the strength of the sin’s image, that it still had great ancestry, contrasted with the value attributed to the pig's livelihood source.

Saint Antonio Abate then became domestic animals’s patron, celebrated on January 17. In Italian popular and religious culture, rituals and festivals related to the day dedicated to Saint Antonio multiply, the strongest and widespread is the animals and stables blessing.

From the 11th Century, the monks of the “Antoniani” religious congregation begane to care for the sick so-called “Saint Antonio’ fire” (Herpes Zoster) with ointments prepared from the pigs fat that they bred in their monasteries.

The Saint Antonio Abate Anniversary - on January 17, the date of his death - was very much felt in the countryside.

The day before farmers cleaned the stable and gave a double food ration to the animals, because according to tradition the Saint would come to visit the animals during the night, and if they had told him not to be treated well, he wouldn’t do anything during the year, to preserve their masters from adversity.