My paper will focus on several depictions of the temptation of Saint Anthony which were not painted on orthodox media such as wood or canvas, but rather on locally available types of marble such as pietra paesina or oriental agate alabaster. My hypothesis is that in realizing the subject of the temptation, the artists consciously resort to the materiality of the marble, its media-specificity, as well as to its aesthetic structure. Anthony will figure as a hermeneutic model whose retreat into the desert, striving for humility, and ability for discernment provide closely intertwined key contexts which shed new light on the meaning of the pictorial support. 

Steffen Zierholz is currently a Getty/ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow in the History of Art. He received his PhD in Art History in 2016 from the University of Bern (supervisor: Prof. Christine Göttler). From 2016–2018, he was Adjunct Assistant Professor (wissenschaftlicher Assistent) at the Institute of Art History, University Bern. In 2015, he was awarded with the Prix Richterich and in 2018 with an UniBE Initiator Grant. He received postdoctoral fellowships from the Bibliotheca Hertziana, Max Planck Institute of Art History and the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max Planck Institute. He is particularly interested in issues of sacred art, the art of living, and the materiality of pictorial supports. He is now working on his second book provisionally entitled Imaginaries of the Subterranean in Early Modern Italy. His publications include Räume der Reform: Kunst und Lebenskunst der Jesuiten in Rom, 1580–1700 (Gebr. Mann: 2019).