Into the Desert: Demons, Spiritual Focus,

and the Eremitic Ideal in Morgan MS M.626

DENVA GALLANT University of Delaware

Abstract

At the turn of the fourteenth century, eremitic life—typified

by the third- and fourth-century saints known as the Desert
Fathers—was presented as a spiritual ideal not only for men-
dicant friars who struggled to balance the vita activa with the
vita contemplativa, but also for the laity, who were encour-
aged to withdraw to their own “desert” or to any space where
they could connect with God. Art historians have traditionally
explored the significance of the Desert Fathers during this pe-
riod by examining wall and panel paintings, while illustrated
copies of the tradition’s fundamental text have gone largely
unremarked. This article addresses New York, The Morgan
Library & Museum, MS M.626, a richly illuminated manu-
script of the Vitae patrum, focusing on its abundant illus-
trations depicting the Desert Fathers’ battles with demons,
which is an unusual feature among the illuminated manu-
scripts of the Vitae patrum from the period. By showing how
the Desert Fathers struggled with demons, the Morgan manu-
script teaches its viewers to value and exercise the skill of spir-
itual focus. Its illustrations, which train the viewers in the
habits of the mind that make meditation, contemplation, and
prayer possible, broaden our understanding of how images par-
ticipated in the rise of the eremitic ideal, reinforcing and in-
structing the faithful in the modes of piety exemplified by the
Desert Fathers.
a 1
monk surrenders to forbidden desire on
fol. 36v of an illustrated fourteenth-century
manuscript of the Vitae patrum, New York,
The Morgan Library & Museum, MS M.626
(Fig. 1). In the oblong rectangular frame situated at the bot-
tom of the folio, two scenes are represented. In the first vi-
gnette, the prostrate monk wraps his arms around a woman
with horns and bat-like wings, a Devil-conjured phantasm.
The woman wraps her leg, exposed up to the thigh, around
the monk’s legs in an embrace suggestive of sex. In the second
scene, separated from the first by a tree, the monk is repre-
sented again, this time sitting at a table. Looking down at
the bread and jug before him, he throws his hands up in dis-
may. His food has been ruined.
The image narrates an anecdote from the Verba seniorum,
a compendium of short stories and maxims of the Desert Fa-
thers—third- and fourth-century hermit saints who retreated
to the desert to practice penance and self-denial.2 Before he
fell into temptation, the monk in the image had so excelled
at his practice that he was rewarded daily with a miraculously
provided loaf. Now, however, the bread reflects the monk’s
corruption and pollution. The juxtaposition of the two im-
ages, one following the other, impresses upon the viewer that
it is possible to incur God’s immediate disfavor through a

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the Index of Medieval Art Workshops at Princeton, at the Medieval-Renaissance Forum
in the Department of the History of Art at Yale University, and at Southern Methodist University for the Comini Lecture Series. I would like
to thank the audiences at those occasions for probing questions and comments. For their indispensable comments on this paper at various
stages of its development, I warmly thank Jeffrey Hamburger, Holly Flora, and the anonymous readers for Gesta.

1. Morgan MS M.626 measures 356 × 252 mm (ruled space 158 × 240 mm) and shows signs of trimming. The full manuscript consists of
138 vellum folios with two fly leaves that were added in the fifteenth century. Most recently dated to ca. 1330–43, based on a comparative
stylistic analysis, the Morgan manuscript has been connected to the Neapolitan royal house of Anjou. On the style and dating of the man-
uscript, see Bernhard Degenhart and Annegrit Schmitt, Corpus der italienischen Zeichnungen 1300–1450 1 (Berlin: Mann, 1968), pt. 1:46–47;
Andreas Bräm, Neapolitanische Bilderbibeln des Trecento: Anjou-Buchmalerei von Robert dem Weisen bis zu Johanna I (Wiesbaden: Reichert,
2007), 189–90; and Alessandra Perriccioli Saggese, “Un codice per Roberto D’Angiò: Le Vitae Patrum della Pierpont Morgan Library,” in
Ingenita Curiositas: Studi sull’Italia Medievale per Giovanni Vitolo, ed. Bruno Figliuolo, Rosalba di Meglio, and Antonella Ambrosio (Bat-
tipaglia: La Veglia & Carlone, 2018), 907–14. On its connection to the Angevin rulers of Naples, see Perriccioli Saggese, “Un codice per
Roberto D’Angiò.”
2. Patrologiae cursus completus: Series latina, ed. J. P. Migne (Paris: Garnier, 1844–64), 21: cols. 396–97 (hereafter, Migne, PL). For an
English translation, see The Lives of the Desert Fathers: The Historia monachorum in aegypto, trans. Norman Russell, Cistercian Studies 34
(Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1980), 59–61.

Gesta v60n1 (Spring 2021).

0031-8248/2021/7703-0005 $10.00. Copyright 2021 by the International Center of Medieval Art. All rights reserved.

v60n1, Spring 2021 Demons and Spiritual Focus in Morgan MS M.626 D 101
Figure 1. Monk and phantasm in erotic embrace and monk suffers consequences, fol. 36v, ca. 1330–40, New York, The Morgan Library,
MS M.626 (photo: The Morgan Library & Museum. Purchased by J. P. Morgan [1867–1943] in 1916). See the electronic edition of Gesta
for color versions of most images.
small dalliance with unseemly thoughts. The images encour-
age good behavior and ascetic discipline by demonstrating the
consequences of wayward actions.
There are several such illustrations in Morgan MS M.626.
In fact, the abundance of demonic imagery is what makes
it unique. Before the fourteenth century, manuscripts of the
Vitae patrum were rarely illuminated. Because there was al-
most no iconographic tradition to speak of before then, illu-
minations of the Vitae patrum in Italy were limited mostly
to inhabited initials featuring Desert Fathers and Mothers
peeking out from their confines.3 From the fourteenth cen-
3. See, for instance, a manuscript of the Vitae patrum now held
in Brindisi in the south of Italy (Biblioteca pubblica arcivescovile
Annibale De Leo in Brindisi, MS A/2), and in Rome (Biblioteca
Casanatense, MS 1898). On MS A/2, see Claudia Bressani, “‘Le Vi-
tae Veterum Patrum,’ codice A/2 della Biblioteca Arcivescovile
Annibale De Leo di Brindisi” (PhD diss., Lecce, Università degli
Studi, 2000–2001); Rosario Jurlaro, “L’autoritratto di Lorenzo
Monaco in un codice della Biblioteca Arcivescovile di Brindisi,”
L’Arte n.s. 23, no. 3 (1958): 243–50 at 245. On MS 1898, see Paolo
D’Ancona, La miniatura fiorentina (secoli XI–XIV) 2 (Florence:
Olschki, 1914), 119–20n125; Grazia Salvoni Savorini, “Di alcuni codici
miniati della Biblioteca Casanatense,” Bibliofila 36, no. 3 (1934): 61–
78; Bernard Lambert, Bibliotheca Hieronymiana manuscripta: La tra-
dition manuscrite des oeuvres de Saint Jerome 2 (Steenbrugge: S.
Petri’s-Gravenhage, Martinus Nijhoff, 1969–72), 459–514nn261–63;
Sebastiano Gentile, Oriente cristiano e santità: figure e storie di santi
tra Bisanzio e l’Occidente (Milan: Centro Tibaldi, 1998), 288–90.
102 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
tury, only one other extensively illuminated manuscript of
the Vitae patrum has survived—Biblioteca Apostolica Vati-
cana, MS Vat. lat. 375—and it does not contain a single image
of a demon.4 As a rich source of illuminations featuring the
4. In contrast to Morgan MS M.626, which has 272 illumina-
tions, Vat. lat. 375 has 108. Of Sicilian origin but heavily influenced
by Byzantine stylistic conventions, the Vatican manuscript has
been associated with the figurative tradition of the wall paintings
referred to as Thebaids. Vat. lat. 375 represents a late medieval re-
cension of the Vitae patrum that differs from the one presented in
the Morgan manuscript. Although the manuscripts overlap in con-
tent, their illuminators chose to illustrate different moments from
the Lives, and the manuscripts do not share an any iconography.
On Vat. lat. 375, see Rebecca W. Corrie, “Sicilian Ambitions Re-
newed: Manuscripts and Crusading Iconography,” Studies in Ico-
nography 34 (2013): 47–102; Alessandra Malquori, Il giardino
dell’anima: ascesi e propaganda nelle Tebaidi fiorentine del Quat-
trocento (Florence: Centro Di, 2012), 21–23; Alessandra Mal-
quori, “La ‘Tebaide’ degli Uffizi: tradizioni letterarie e figurative
per l’interpretazione di un tema iconografico,” I Tatti Studies in
the Italian Renaissance 9 (2001): 119–37, at 123–24; Alessandra
Malquori, “Luoghi e immagini nelle storie degli anacoreti di Pisa,”
in “Conosco un ottimo storico dell’arte . . .”: per Enrico Castelnuovo:
scritti di allievi e amici pisani, ed. Enrico Castelnuovo, Maria Mon-
ica Donato, and Massimo Ferretti (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale,
2012), 97–104, at 102–3; Miklós Boskovits, “Officina pisana: il XIII
secolo,” Arte cristiana n.s. 94/834 (2006): 161–209, at 174; and Anna
De Floriani, “Una bibbia siciliana di primo Trecento: indagini
preliminari,” Cicli e immagini bibliche nella miniatura: atti del
VI Congresso di Storia della Miniatura, Urbino, 3–6 ottobre 2002,
Desert Fathers, the Morgan manuscript extends our knowledge
of the corpus and invites us to consider the role the saints’
struggles with demons played in the ideals they embodied: a
return to prayer, contemplation, and the vita contemplativa.
As we shall see, they also help the viewer practice the skill of
spiritual focus.
Scholarship on the Morgan’s Vitae patrum has concerned
itself primarily with the style of its illustrations and its dat-
ing, with only a few scholars mentioning its illustrations in
conjunction with broader themes associated with the rise
of the eremitic ideal and the imagery it inspired.5 In discus-
sions of the sudden proliferation of images inspired by the
Lives of the Desert Fathers in fourteenth-century Italy, illumi-
nated manuscripts have not been the subject of sustained in-
quiry.6 By adding a new corpus to the scholarship, this article
broadens our understanding of the ways images participated
in the rise of the eremitic ideal, reinforcing modes of piety.
Writing about the Desert Fathers, Inbar Graiver has argued
that the systematic effort to train the mind and purify the
ed. Laura Alidori, Rivista di storia della miniature 6–7 (2001–2)
(Florence: Centro Di, 2003), 133–44. For a detailed codicological
description of the manuscript, see Marco Vatasso and Pio Franchi
de Cavalieri, Codices Vaticani Latini 1: 1–678 (Rome: Typis Poliglottis
Vaticanis, 1902), 292.
5. Giampaolo Ermini discusses the illustration of Elijah, John
the Baptist, and Anthony the Abbot found on fol. 1v of MS M.626
in terms of representations of illustrious hermits, while Alessandra
Malquori mentions the image of the Desert Father Martinianus of
Palestine in her discussion of hermits residing in trees. See Giam-
paolo Ermini, “Gli eremiti ‘illustri,’” in Atlante delle Tebaidi e dei
temi figurativi, ed. Alessandra Malquori, Laura Fenelli, and Manuela
de Giorgi (Florence: Centro Di, 2014), 176–78; and Alessandra
Malquori, “L’eremita sull’albero,” in Atlante delle Tebaidi, 230–39.
On the style and dating of MS M.626, see note 1 above.
6. On images inspired by the Lives of the Desert Fathers in
fourteenth-century Italy, see Ellen Callman, “Thebaid Studies,”
Antichità Viva 14, no. 3 (1975): 3–22; Eva Frojmovič, “Eine gemalte
Eremitage in der Stadt: Die Wüstenväter im Camposanto zu Pisa,”
in Malerei und Stadtkultur in der Dantezeit: die Argumentation der
Bilder, ed. Hans Belting and Dieter Blume (Munich: Hirmer, 1989),
201–14; Anne Leader, “The Church and Desert Fathers in Early Re-
naissance Florence: Further Thoughts on a ‘New’ Thebaid,” in New
Studies on Old Masters: Essays in Renaissance Art in Honour of
Colin Eisler, ed. Diane Wolfthal and John Garton, Essays and Stud-
ies 26 (Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies,
2010), 221–34; Chiara Frugoni, “Altri luoghi, cercando il paradiso
(Il ciclo di Buffalmacco nel Camposanto di Pisa e la committenza
domenicana),” Annali della Scuola normale superiore di Pisa. Classe
di lettere e filosofia 18, no. 4 (1988): 1557–1643; Maria Corsi, Gli
affreschi medievali in Santa Marta a Siena: studio iconografico
(Siena: Cantagalli, 2005); Malquori, “La ‘Tebaide’ degli Uffizi”; Mal-
quori, “Luoghi e immagini nelle storie degli anacoreti di Pisa”; Lina
Bolzoni, The Web of Images: Vernacular Preaching from Its Origins
to Saint Bernardino da Siena (Burlington: Ashgate, 2004).
attention made it possible for these saints to draw close to
God.7 At the time the Morgan manuscript was produced, a
thousand years later, monastics and laypeople alike were be-
coming increasingly interested in imitating the practices of
the Desert Fathers. Through its depictions of the eremitic
monks’ struggles with demons, the manuscript teaches its
viewers to value and exercise the skill of spiritual focus.8 The
illustrations portray moments when this focus is disturbed
in the Lives of the Desert Fathers and, in so doing, draw at-
tention to the habits of the mind that interfere with prayer,
meditation, and contemplation. By showing both the perils
of letting the mind focus on the wrong object and the reward
for bringing the mind back to God, they provide the viewer
not only with edifying exempla, but also with helpful attitudes
and approaches to thoughts, urgings, and longings. Through
their illustration and cultivation of attention, the Morgan
images participated in a broad shift in spirituality in the four-
teenth century that encouraged laypeople and monastics alike
to engage in meditation and private prayer.
Morgan MS M.626
The Vitae patrum is an anthology of the lives of Eastern
Christian ascetics who inhabited the arid wastelands and des-
erts of Egypt, Palestine, and Syria during the fourth and fifth
centuries.9 Morgan MS M.626 transmits a late-medieval re-
cension of the Vitae patrum, produced in Naples in the four-
teenth century.10 The manuscript is similar in content and
structure to another southern Italian fourteenth-century
manuscript of the Vitae patrum, Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale
Cod.VIII.B.10.11 The Morgan manuscript, like Cod.VIII.B.10,
begins with the lives of Paul of Thebes, Anthony the Abbot,
7. Inbar Graiver, Asceticism of the Mind: Forms of Attention and
Self-Transformation in Late Antique Monasticism (Toronto: Pon-
tifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2018).
8. On devotion and instruction in medieval images, see Aden
Kumler, Translating Truth: Ambitious Images and Religious
Knowledge in Late Medieval France and England (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 2011).
9. The literature on the Vitae patrum is too extensive to cite here.
For an overview, see Eva Schulz-Flügel, “Zur Entstehung der Cor-
pora Vitae patrum,” in Studia patristica 20: Papers Presented to
the Tenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Ox-
ford, 1987, 2: Critica, Classica, Orientalia, Ascetica, Liturgica, ed.
Elizabeth A. Livingstone (Leuven: Peeters, 1989), 289–300.
10. A complete listing of the contents of MS M.626, along with a
codicological description of the manuscript, can be found on Corsair,
the online research resource of the Morgan Library and Mu-
seum: http://corsair.morganlibrary.org/msdescr/BBM0626.htm
(accessed October 13, 2020).
11. On Cod.VIII.B.10, see “Codex VIII.B.10,” Analecta
bollandiana 30 (1911): 173–77.
Demons and Spiritual Focus in Morgan MS M.626 D 103
Hilarion, and Malchus the Captive and then proceeds to a re-
cension of the Historia monachorum. Both manuscripts con-
tinue with a recension of the Verba seniorum believed to
have been compiled by the theologian and historian Rufinus
of Aquileia. After the Verba seniorum, the manuscripts in-
clude the short vitae of the Desert Fathers presented in the
Historia lausica; the individual lives of Eastern desert saints
such as Sabas of Jerusalem, Pachomius, Fronto of Nitria, and
Paphnutius; the visionary accounts of medieval monks of
the Latin West; and the lives of the Desert Mothers Marina,
Euphrosyna, and Mary of Egypt. Among other factors, the in-
clusion of a redaction of the vita of Saint Gregory the Miracle
Worker (Gregorius Thaumaturgus) written by Peter, sub-
deacon of Naples, allows us to trace both the Morgan manu-
script and Cod.VIII.B.10 to the south of Italy, and specifically
to Naples. The manuscripts’ similarities suggest that they rep-
resent a compilation popular in southern Italy during the four-
teenth century, though it is unclear whether the redactions are
representative of a compilation produced by a specific monas-
tic house.
With 272 images illustrating the lives of over thirty Desert
Fathers and Mothers, MS M.626 stands apart from both
Cod.VIII.B.10, which contains no illustrations, and other il-
luminated manuscripts of the Vitae patrum. Every page is il-
luminated. At the bottom of each folio below the text, the
miniatures are enclosed in oblong panels within bands of
varying colors. Often appearing on the same page as the re-
lated text, the images in the Morgan manuscript suggest argu-
ments and emphasize themes, offering a reading of the text
that is not unlike a gloss. Indeed, the layout suggests that
the text would have been read first, to provide context, and
the images read afterward. The text, however, did not neces-
sarily hold more weight or authority than the images.
Morgan MS M.626 is a royal manuscript.12 A crypto-
portrait, a disguised representation of King Robert on
fol. 60v (Fig. 2), suggests that like the so-called Anjou Bible,
another prominent Neapolitan manuscript with representa-
tions of the sovereign, MS M.626 might have been commis-
12. In his essay on the royal manuscript as idea, John Lowden
urges scholars to expand the current understanding of the term
royal manuscript. He extends the classification to manuscripts that
are mentioned in royal inventories and contain a dedicatory in-
scription, note of royal ownership, royal heraldic devices or mot-
tos, and/or image of a contemporary king or queen: in short,
any identifier that might suggest royal history or provenance. John
Lowden, “The Royal Manuscript as Idea and Object,” in Royal
Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination. Published on the Occa-
sion of the Exhibition at the British Library, Royal Manuscripts:
The Genius of Illumination, 11 November 2011–13 March 2012,
ed. Scot McKendrick, Kathleen Doyle, and John Lowden (London:
British Library Publishing, 2012), 18–42.
104 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
sioned for the king.13 With an illumination for every page of
text, this manuscript was intended to edify its reader—while
the text provided the viewer with edifying tales, the illustra-
tions instructed him in habits of the mind that he might
adopt.14 With its extensive illuminations, MS M.626 offers
an outstanding witness to the resurgence of the Desert Fathers
and the rise of the contemplative ideal in fourteenth-century
Italy.
Demonic Besiegement: Spiritual Focus Gone Awry
The phenomenon known today as the “monasticization
of the laity” was as pervasive an influence in Italy as it was
elsewhere in late-medieval Europe.15 The translation and
diffusion of scripturally based meditations outlined in such
works as the Lignum vitae (ca. 1260) and the Meditationes
vitae Christi (ca. 1346) suggest that devotional practices orig-
inally meant for the cloister were appreciated and applied
by the laity. Images played a critical role in their diffusion;
as Raphaèle Preisinger has argued, large mural paintings of
13. The figure can be identified as Robert of Anjou based on in-
signia associated with him and physiognomic similarities to other
depictions of the sovereign, such as those found in the Anjou Bible.
In the illumination with the sovereign’s crypto-portrait (Fig. 2), a
figure in the retinue, front and center in vivid red robes, holds a
flag of the Jerusalem Cross with a fleur-de-lys crowning its pole.
The emblem refers to two distinctions specific to the Neapolitan
Angevin Dynasty: the Jerusalem Cross, denoting the family’s title
as Kings of Jerusalem; and the golden fleur-de-lys, indicating the
family’s status as descendants of the Capetian royal line. See also
Perriccioli Saggese, “Un codice per Roberto D’Angiò.” Robert’s
portrait fits within the larger context of disguised ruler portraits,
of which one relevant tradition is that of depicting rulers within
images of the Three Magi. On this tradition, see Olga Pujmanová,
“Portraits of Kings Depicted as Magi in Bohemian Painting,” in
The Regal Image of Richard II and the Wilton Diptych, ed. Dillian
Dordon, Lisa Monnas, and Caroline Elam (Coventry: Harvey Miller,
1997), 247–67. Also important are images of rulers depicted as
Solomon. See Daniel H. Weiss, “The Three Solomon Portraits in
the Arsenal Old Testament and the Construction of Meaning in
Crusader Painting,” Arte medievale 4, no. 2 (1992): 15–38. Of fur-
ther interest is Gerhard Jaritz, “Constantine in Late Medieval West-
ern Art: Just the Son of a Holy Mother?” in The Life and Legacy of
Constantine: Traditions through the Ages (New York: Routledge, 2017),
198–215.
14. While it is intriguing to ponder how Robert would have read
this manuscript, a study of this topic is beyond the scope of this
article.
15. For a broader discussion of the transferral of monastic forms
of piety to lay life, see André Vauchez, La sainteté en Occident aux
derniers siècles du Moyen Age: d’après les procès de canonisation et
les documents hagiographiques, Bibliothèque des Écoles françaises
d’Athènes et de Rome 241 (Rome: École française de Rome, 1988),
472–78.
Figure 2. King Robert of Anjou as Emperor Theodosius visits Father Poemen, fol. 60v, ca. 1330–40, New York, The Morgan Library, MS
M.626 (photo: The Morgan Library & Museum. Purchased by J. P. Morgan [1867–1943] in 1916).
the Lignum vitae in Italian urban centers promoted and guided
meditation on the humanity of Christ for both lay and ecclesi-
astical audiences who may also have heard the Meditationes
read aloud.16 The ability to concentrate one’s focus—to “pay
attention,” as the narrator in the Meditationes vitae Christi
constantly urges his reader—lies at the heart of prayer and
meditation.17 Such focus, in the case of the Meditationes vitae
Christi, allowed one to witness and experience with compas-
sion Christ’s suffering.
In Morgan MS M.626, the Desert Father John’s negative
exempla on pride are particularly rich sites for exploring the
16. Raphaèle Preisinger, “Anachoretic Ideals in Urban Settings:
Meditational Practices and Mural Painting in Trecento Italy,” in
Solitudo: Spaces, Places, and Times of Solitude in Late Medieval
and Early Modern Cultures, ed. Karl A. E. Enenkel and Christine
Göttler, Intersections 56 (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 177–207.
17. On issues of attention and the Meditationes vitae Christi, see
Holly Flora, The Devout Belief of the Imagination: The Paris “Medi-
tationes Vitae Christi” and Female Franciscan Spirituality in Trecento
Italy, Disciplina monastica 6 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009); Isa Ragusa
and Rosalie Green, trans. and ed., Meditations on the Life of Christ:
An Illustrated Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, Princeton
Monographs in Art and Archaeology 35 (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1961), 133–35. For the most recent bibliography on the
Meditationes vitae Christi, including a re-dating, see David Fálvay
and Peter Tóth, “New Light on the Date and Authorship of the
Meditationes vitae Christi,” in Devotional Culture in Late Medieval
England and Europe: Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life, ed. Ste-
phen Kelly and Ryan Perry, Medieval Church Studies 31 (Turnhout:
Brepols, 2014), 17–107.
notion of spiritual focus.18 The presence of phantasms in John’s
negative exempla allows us to consider disruptions to spiri-
tual focus—where they come from (the Devil) and why they
arise (due to pride and negligence). In both Late Antiquity
and the Middle Ages, demons were believed to produce dis-
tractions that prevented the faithful from connecting with
God.19 They did so in several ways. Through demonic infil-
tration, they could manipulate a person’s cognitive faculties
by conjuring powerful urgings and trains of thought that were
intended to interfere with his stream of consciousness.20 Through
the same means, they could also plant visual images inside
18. John’s exempla on pride are located on fols. 31v–36v of the
Morgan manuscript, forming part of the manuscript’s recension of
the Historia monachorum, a collection of short vitae of early Egyp-
tian ascetics, based on an anonymous account of a journey taken
by seven Palestinian monks in 394; Migne, PL 21: cols. 393–403.
19. On demons as distractions, see Graiver, Asceticism of the
Mind, 61–65. Several evocative examples from both hagiography
and monastic treatises suggest that demons were viewed as spiritual
distractions; see, for instance, Jordan of Quedlinburg’s discussion in
The Life of the Brethren, ed. John E. Rotelle and trans. Gerard
Deighan (Villanova: Augustinian Press, 1993), 198–202.
20. In both Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the Devil and
his demons were considered to be real physical beings, albeit invis-
ible. Though they consisted of air-like substance, they could, as
John’s exempla will show, appear to take on a physical, material
form that could deceive and mislead. Augustine insisted that de-
mons could persuade men in both marvelous and unseen ways by
planting imaginary visions and mingling themselves with men’s
Demons and Spiritual Focus in Morgan MS M.626 D 105
people’s minds. These images were known as “phantasms,”
a term used at the time to refer broadly to simulacra of things
in the material world.21
In John’s exempla, when a monk begins to trust in himself,
“placing his reliance on his good way of life,” he becomes
acutely susceptible to phantasms conjured by the Devil.22
Pride, or a deep sense of satisfaction in one’s own accomplish-
ments, leads to a diminishing reliance on God and a reluc-
tance to pursue activities such as prayer and meditation that
place one in constant contact with him. A person whose focus
strays from God becomes open to the will and influence of the
Devil and is thus vulnerable to phantasms. The illustrations in
the Morgan manuscript concretize the relationship between
the phantasm and the monk, and model what I argue is an ap-
proach to cultivating focus that is grounded in medieval atti-
tudes to the management of thoughts.23
Five illuminations are devoted to John’s exempla on pride.
The first two depict the story of a monk who, as a result of re-
thoughts, whether the men were awake or asleep. Isidore of Seville,
elaborating on how demons assailed men while asleep, affirmed
Augustine’s theory, declaring that demons often plagued men with
visions, hoping to arouse fear in them. See Augustine, Treatises
on Marriage and Other Subjects, ed. Roy J. Deferrari and trans.
Charles T. Wilcox, Fathers of the Church 27 (Washington, D.C.:
Catholic University of America, 1955), 430; Isidore of Seville, Sen-
tentiae 3.6 in Migne, PL 83: cols. 668–71. See also Jacques LeGoff,
The Medieval Imagination, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1988), 224–25. On the history of the
Devil and demons within Christian culture, see Jeffery Burton
Russell’s three volumes: The Devil: Perceptions of Evil from Antiq-
uity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1977); Satan: The Early Christian Tradition (Ithaca: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1981); and Lucifer: The Devil in the Middle Ages (Ith-
aca: Cornell University Press, 1984); also see Robert Muchembled,
A History of the Devil from the Middle Ages to the Present (Cam-
bridge: Polity Press, 2003).
21. On phantasms in general, see Mary J. Carruthers, The Craft
of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400–
1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 132–33. On
the Devil and his demons’ ability to plant demonic phantasms, see
Walter Stephens, Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of
Belief (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 290–99 and
365–66; Stuart Clark, Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern
European Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 123–
60; Claudia Swan, “Counterfeit Chimeras: Early Modern Theories
of the Imagination and the Work of Art,” in Vision and its Instru-
ments: Art, Science, and Technology in Early Modern Europe, ed.
Alina Payne (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2015), 216–37.
22. The Lives of the Desert Fathers, trans. Russell, 60.
23. For a broader discussion of medieval habits of the mind, see
The Ontology, Psychology and Axiology of Habits (Habitus) in Me-
dieval Philosophy, ed. Nicolas Faucher and Magali Roques (Cham:
Springer, 2018).
106 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
lying on his own virtue, is presented with the phantasm of a
woman and succumbs to its wiles.24 The first illustration,
fol. 35r (Fig. 3), depicts the initial encounter between the
monk and the phantasm. While the text does not identify
the woman as a demonic phantasm initially, she is depicted
as such in the illuminations. A woman with bat-like wings
and horns bows down before the monk, begging for permis-
sion to enter his home, which is shown to the left. Throughout
the Morgan manuscript, horns and wings are a common iden-
tifier—they indicate that the figure, male or female, is a demon
in disguise, often a phantasm. In contrast to similar represen-
tations of demonic phantasms in the Thebaid at the Cam-
posanto (Fig. 4), the clear, even conspicuous representation
of the woman as a demon allows the viewer to recognize
her as such, so that the images convey not a monk encounter-
ing a woman, but a monk encountering a phantasm, a distinc-
tion that establishes the nature of the relationship that will
unfold.25
As the disguised demon kneels, the monk points down at
her. With this gesture, the monk alerts the viewer to this sa-
lient moment in the narrative.26 By allowing the phantasm
to enter his home, the monk opens himself up to demonic cor-
ruption. In ascetical writing, the house frequently serves as a
metaphor for the body.27 In his letters, Anthony tells his fel-
low ascetics, “[We are] accusing each other and not ourselves,
thinking that our toil is from our fellows, judging what is
24. Migne, PL 21: col. 399.
25. Though less conspicuous than in the Morgan illumination, in
the Camposanto fresco the phantasm’s clawed foot indicates her de-
monic identity. On the Camposanto Thebaid, see Frojmovič, “Eine
gemalte Eremitage,” 201–14; Frugoni, “Altri luoghi, cercando il pa-
radiso,” 1557–1643; and Malquori, “Luoghi e immagini nelle storie.”
On the Camposanto complex in general, see Clara Baracchini and
Enrico Castelnuovo, eds., Il Camposanto di Pisa, Biblioteca de storia
dell’arte n.s. 27 (Turin: Einaudi, 1996).
26. A similar gesture is found on fol. 60v of the manuscript. The
gesture is meant to draw the viewer’s attention to the figure or object.
27. On the house as a metaphor for the body in late antique
writing, see David Brakke, “The Making of Monastic Demonology:
Three Ascetic Teachers on Ascetic Withdrawal and Resistance,”
Church History 70, no. 1 (2001): 19–48, at 27–28. Although I pres-
ent one aspect of the house as a metaphor for the body in ascetical
writing, scholars, especially those interested in unpacking theories
of sexuality as they pertain to the lives of female saints, have pre-
sented others; see Patricia Cox Miller, “The Blazing Body: Ascetic
Desire in Jerome’s Letter to Eustochium,” Journal of Early Chris-
tian Studies 1, no. 1 (1993): 21–45. For a broader discussion of
the house as a metaphor for the body, see John Allen Canuteson,
“The Conflict between the Body and Soul as a Metaphor of the
Moral Struggle in the Middle Ages, with Special Reference to Mid-
dle English Literature” (PhD diss., University of Florida, 1975),
esp. chapters 1 and 3.
Figure 3. Monk encounters phantasm, fol. 35r, ca. 1330–40, New York, The Morgan Library, MS M.626 (photo: The Morgan Library &
Museum. Purchased by J. P. Morgan [1867–1943] in 1916).
outside while the robbers are all inside our house.”28 The rob-
bers are one’s demons. As Anthony describes, they steal into
the body and make it their home. In the illustration, the phan-
tasm has an open door to enter the monk’s home, that is, to
infiltrate his body. It is important to recall here that in the
Middle Ages, people believed that demons could indeed enter
the human body, often thanks to their subtle, air-like sub-
stance. Here, the phantasm is poised to enter the home, which
stands as a metaphor for the body. Though we may read the
presence of the phantasm as evidence that demonic infiltra-
tion has already occurred, the open door solidifies the idea
that the monk will accept this phantasm, not reject or dismiss
it.
The next illumination, fol. 35v, confirms that the monk has
not only accepted the phantasm, but has also developed an at-
tachment to it: he is holding it in a suggestive embrace (Fig. 5).
Slack-jawed and open-mouthed, the monk appears consumed
by his intent to merge fully with the phantasm. This is not
the clear-eyed, focused stare of Christ as he looks at Judas in
the Arena Chapel (Fig. 6), a stare that scholars have argued
connotes spiritual sight or discernment.29 Instead, the monk
stares as if entranced. His demeanor mirrors his approach
28. Samuel Rubenson, Letters of St. Antony: Monasticism and the
Making of a Saint, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Minne-
apolis: Fortress, 1997), 36–37, 49–55, 67.
29. Anne Derbes and Mark Sandona, The Usurer’s Heart: Giotto,
Enrico Scrovegni, and the Arena Chapel in Padua (University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 2008), 136.
to the phantasm; he has chosen to succumb to its false de-
lights.
The monk’s choice to engage with his phantasm reflects
medieval attitudes to the management of thoughts. Specifi-
cally, it implies that thoughts are something that can be con-
sciously invited into the mind (as the monk has done, with the
result that he succumbs to his desires) or deliberately pushed
out. In a chapter of his Life of the Brethren devoted to explain-
ing the benefits of the struggle between the flesh and the spirit,
the Augustinian hermit friar Jordan of Quedlinburg (1358)
tells his readers:
We should be aware that even if we cannot avoid our
bad thoughts as a whole, we can however restrain them
one by one. We do this through the governance of
reason which has power to consider the object of our
thoughts either delightful or undesirable. Just as we
judge a food to be delightful or poisonous, in the same
way reason can consider the sexual act either as delight-
ful for the body or deadly for the soul. Therefore, when
the thought of some woman comes to you, reason gives
you the power to think of her as beautiful, desirable, and
capable of satisfying our fleshly desires, or as a sack of
dung, a net of the devil, and a deadly poison for the soul.
Thus, we may either take delight in such a thought and
accept it, or despise it and recoil from it.30
30. Jordan of Quedlinburg, Life of the Brethren, 281.
Demons and Spiritual Focus in Morgan MS M.626 D 107

Figure 4. Buonamico Buffalmacco, Thebaid, detail, Monk encoun-
ters phantasm, ca. 1330–40, Il Camposanto, Pisa, Italy (photo:
author).
Jordan’s description represents a way of imagining one’s re-
lationship to thoughts and urges—a mental stance that derives
from Late Antique monastic discourses on mental fornicatio
and curiositas.31 The concept of expelling thoughts by dislo-
cating them and deliberately pushing them away, which is
discussed in the writings of John Cassian, continued as a to-
pos well into the Middle Ages. As Mary Carruthers notes,
the advice persists in the “common counsel to ‘expel worldly
cares’ or preoccupations, in the preparation of meditative
thought.”32 Jordan’s understanding that it is the governance
of reason that allows one to choose to despise and recoil or
to accept and take delight gestures to the Late Antique prac-
tice of “weighing one’s thoughts,” a technique of introspec-
tion that enabled a person “to attend to the flood of feelings
and memories that might divert him without being seduced
by them.”33 To attend to vivid and arresting feelings without
31. On fornicatio and curiositas, see Carruthers, The Craft of
Thought, 82–94.
32. Ibid., 95.
33. William Harmless, Desert Christians: An Introduction to the
Literature of Early Monasticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
108 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
becoming subsumed by them, one needed not only the skill of
discernment—which included the ability to distinguish demon-
conjured thoughts from those that were divinely inspired—but
also the skill that Jordan describes so evocatively. The prac-
tice of choosing certain thoughts and rejecting others was espe-
cially important in prayer, as the mind’s tendency to wander
and to latch onto distractions in the form of discursive thought
subverted true prayer.
The Morgan illustrations we have considered give visual
expression to the dangerous practice of accepting and taking
delight in sexually enticing mental images. Having accepted
and enjoyed the phantasm, the monk suffers consequences
that are given metaphorical weight in the illustration. Above
the couple are swarming hordes of demons, a reference to the
raucous laughter that emerges at the moment of the monk’s
deception (Fig. 5).34 To the left and right of the couple are a
demon and a monk. The monk appears to have fallen. With
one hand he attempts to break his fall, yet he does so in vain.
His walking stick lies in pieces beside him, and he has suffered
wounds: blood issues from his tonsured head and his hands.
Mimicking the fallen monk on the right is a demon who lies
just to the left of the couple.35 The demon’s fall, apparently
from the swarming hordes above, evokes the first fall from
grace, when Lucifer, puffed up with pride, was cast out of
2004), 62. Peter Brown discusses this as well; see Peter Brown, The
Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early
Christianity, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008),
228.
34. The demons are said to mercilessly rebuke the now-fallen
monk, quoting Luke 14:11: “Whosoever exalteth himself shall be
abased.” The quote is found on fol. 35v of the Morgan manuscript
on the same page as the illumination.
35. The fallen demon and those surrounding the couple have
bright red sparks issuing from almost every orifice. Looking at sim-
ilar iconography of demons in manuscripts and frescoes, Anne
Derbes and Amy Neff have argued that the sparks might represent
fire or blood. In the Morgan manuscript, the bright red sparks, most
likely fire, draw attention to the base and carnal nature of the de-
mons. See Anne Derbes and Amy Neff, “This Unnatural Flow’:
Bleeding Demons and Anti-Semitism in the Supplicationes variae,
the Arena Chapel, and Notre-Dame-des-Fontaines, La Brigue,” in
Anathemata Eortika: Studies in Honor of Thomas F. Mathews, ed. Jo-
seph D. Alchermes, Helen C. Evans, and Thelma K. Thomas (Mainz:
Philipp von Zabern, 2009), 247–55. For a broader consideration of
representations of diabolism and the demonic, see John Freccero,
“The Sign of Satan,” in Dante: The Poetics of Conversion, ed. Rachel
Jacoff (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986), 167–79, 305–8;
Luther Link, The Devil: The Archfiend in Art, from the Sixth to the
Sixteenth Century (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1995); Stuart Clark,
Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Eu-
rope (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 1–147; and Deborah
Higgs Strickland, Saracens, Demons, and Jews: Making Monsters in
Medieval Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).
Figure 5. Monk encounters phantasm, fol. 35v, ca. 1330–40, New York, The Morgan Library, MS M.626 (photo: The Morgan Library &
Museum. Purchased by J. P. Morgan [1867–1943] in 1916).
Figure 6. Giotto, The Kiss of Judas, ca. 1303–6, Arena Chapel,
Padua, Italy (photo: Alfredo Dagli Orti/Art Resource, NY).
heaven along with the other rebel angels.36 Taken together
with the monk’s fall, the image of the fallen demon suggests
that like Lucifer, the monk has fallen from grace. The monk’s
fall, whether literal or figurative, is not mentioned in the ex-
emplum. The designers of the Morgan manuscript evidently
sought to make it clear that engagement with even mental im-
ages has consequences: it distances the monk from God.37
The illustration of the monk choosing to focus on his
phantasm presents a theme that is explored further in the
second illumination dedicated to John’s negative exempla
on pride, described at the beginning of this article (fol. 36v;
36. The legend of Satan’s fall from grace emerges from a mo-
ment in the book of the Apocalypse (12:10) when an angel says,
“The accuser of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them be-
fore our God day and night.” Although it is not mentioned in Gen-
esis, the Fall of the Rebel Angels was understood beginning in the
thirteenth century to have happened when God divided light from
darkness. For a compelling discussion of the fall of Lucifer and the
rebel angels in an illuminated medieval manuscript, see Asa Simon
Mittman and Susan M. Kim, “Locating the Devil ‘Her’ in MS Junius
11,” Gesta 54, no. 1 (2015): 3–25.
37. Both David Brakke and Peter Brown discuss the moral im-
perative within the Lives that thoughts and phantasms be prevented
from entering the mind or soul (“heart”). David Brakke, Demons
and the Making of the Monk: Spiritual Combat in Early Christianity
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 39–41, 45, 118–19; and
Brown, The Body and Society, 167, 224–28.
Demons and Spiritual Focus in Morgan MS M.626 D 109
Fig. 1). While the illustration does the same work as the pre-
vious set—demonstrating how accepting and engaging with
lascivious mental images leads to a fall from grace—it does
so differently: it provokes the viewer by placing him in the po-
sition of the monk plagued by the phantasm. The illustration
presents a pithy retelling of John’s exemplum of a monk who,
having reached ascetic perfection, soon begins to develop an
“idleness of the soul” that leads him to succumb to a phan-
tasm.38 The monk’s unseemly dalliance is depicted on the left.
Lying on the ground, the monk engages in what can only be
called an explicit embrace. He wraps his arms around the
phantasm, a woman with horns and bat-like wings, similar
to those seen in the previously discussed illustrations. Her
bare leg curls around his. The couple may even be kissing,
although that detail has been scratched away.39 In the exem-
plum, John narrates that when the monk reached an indolent
state, he imagined a woman lying with him. The viewer is pre-
sented with the Devil-conjured image that tempts the monk.
The explicitness of the image places the viewer in a position
similar to that of the monk—vulnerable to arousal. Perhaps
this is why the image has been damaged; the underdrawing
and watercolor that would have defined the areas where the
monk and phantasm were joined together have been erased.
Although it is not known when in the long history of the Mor-
gan manuscript the illustration was effaced, the damage done
to select areas of the illustration calls attention to the danger it
represents.40 Just as the monk found pleasure in seeing an im-
age of himself lying with a woman as if he were performing
the act, so too might the viewer find delight in such a represen-
38. Migne, PL 21: cols. 396–97. For an English translation, see
The Lives of the Desert Fathers, trans. Russell, 59–61.
39. The Morgan manuscript shows signs of scratching and loss
of pigment, perhaps as a result of repeated touching. These signs of
defacement are often found on images of the Devil, for instance, on
fols. 48v, 56v, 59r.
40. Censoring the illustration, by scraping away at the areas
where the monk and phantasm are joined, was certainly an at-
tempt to take away its ability to arouse. Yet enough of the image
remains to indicate the illicit act. The censoring, then, might have
served as a way to indicate a user’s condemnation or disapproval of
the act while leaving it legible. Scratching and blotting out the fig-
ures in the Morgan manuscript are both aspects of “affective liter-
acy.” They are some of the ways the reader developed an emotional
and somatic relationship to the text as part of his reading experi-
ence. On affective literacy in the Middle Ages, see Mark Amsler,
“Affective Literacy: Gestures of Reading in the Later Middle Ages,”
Essays in Medieval Studies 18 (2001): 83–109. On censorship of im-
ages in illuminated manuscripts, see Michael Camille, “Obscenity
under Erasure: Censorship in Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts,”
in Obscenity: Social Control and Artistic Creation in the European
Middle Ages, ed. Jan M. Ziolkowski, Cultures, Beliefs and Tradi-
tions 4 (Boston: Brill, 1998), 139–54.
110 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
tation. It might even tempt the viewer to engage in the kind of
imagining that the illumination purportedly warns against.41
The erotic charge of the image, however, is not allowed to
go unchecked. The consequences of taking pleasure in the vivid
image are depicted in the scene that follows (Fig. 1, right).
The monk, now seated at a table, lifts his arms in shock and
distress as he looks down at the table, which holds a loaf of
bread and a jug. Before his dalliance, the monk received loaves
of bread from God as a sign of his favor. Now, however, when
he goes to receive his daily provision, the monk finds that the
bread is moldy and dried up. The ruined bread is a sign that he
has fallen out of God’s favor.42 Like the previous illustration
that depicts the monk suffering the consequences of engaging
with his phantasm, this illumination shows that accepting and
taking delight in lurid fantasies conjured by the Devil leads to
a fall from grace.
Disengaging: Detachment as a Mode of Approach
The Morgan illustrations narrating John’s negative exem-
pla on pride show how not to approach the thoughts and
urgings that might lead one astray. They give visual expres-
sion to Jordan’s phrase “accept and take delight in,” which
is shown in the manuscript to lead only to disgrace. A set of
images from the Life of Anthony models the opposite ap-
proach: that of despising and recoiling from sinful mental im-
ages and thoughts. These images also demonstrate how to
detach and disengage from one’s thoughts, another way to re-
coil. The illustrations serve as counter-examples to those de-
picting the Desert Father John’s exempla; they instruct the
viewer on how to approach the most troubling and problem-
atic thoughts.
The Life of Anthony is famous for the saint’s battles with
the Devil and his demons.43 Although the tenor of these
struggles varies, Anthony’s first battle with the Devil is es-
sentially one in which he battles his own thoughts. The Devil,
who “could not bear to see such outstanding virtues in a
41. On being seduced by erotically charged images, see Michael
Camille, “‘For Our Devotion and Pleasure’: The Sexual Objects of
Jean, Duc de Berry,” Art History 24, no. 2 (2001): 169–94.
42. The negative exemplum here plays on the more positive ex-
empla of the holy man receiving food miraculously from ravens or
angels. For examples, see the illuminations of Paul and Anthony
fed by a raven on fol. 3v of MS M.626 and Onuphrius fed by angels
on fol. 87v.
43. Anthony’s experience of being accosted by demons or tempted
by them is one of the most frequently depicted moments of the
saint’s life during this period. For an encyclopedic overview of the
iconography within the context of the images inspired by the Lives
of the Desert Fathers, see Malquori, Atlante delle Tebaidi e dei temi
figurativi.
Figure 7. Anthony rejects and recoils from thoughts of wealth beyond measure and sisterly comfort, fol. 5v, ca. 1330–40, New York,
The Morgan Library, MS M.626 (photo: The Morgan Library & Museum. Purchased by J. P. Morgan [1867–1943] in 1916).
young man,” plagues the saint with memories of his former
possessions, his sister’s protection, and his family’s high sta-
tus.44 He also tries to awaken in him a desire for material
things, such as the fleeting honors of the world. The Devil bar-
rages Anthony with thoughts so as to lure him away from the
contemplation of God, which, according to Evagrius, is the
mind’s natural activity.45 It is not the first or the last time
the Devil does so.
In the Morgan manuscript, Anthony’s early struggles with
the Devil are presented as face-to-face encounters (Figs. 7–8).
Though Anthony’s trials and tribulations at the hands of de-
mons began to be widely represented during the fourteenth
century, the two vignettes shown on fol. 5v were rarely de-
picted (Fig. 7).46 In the first vignette, Anthony, haloed and
44. “Dum hec gereret antonius quibus omnium in se prouocaret
affectum, inimicus nominis Christiani dyabolus, impatienter ferens
tantas in adolescente uirtutes,” MS M.26, lines 681–86.
45. Carolinne White, ed. and trans., Early Christian Lives: Life
of Antony by Athanasius, Life of Paul of Thebes by Jerome, Life of
Hilarion by Jerome, Life of Malchus by Jerome, Life of Martin of
Tours by Sulpicius Severus, Life of Benedict by Gregory the Great
(London: Penguin Books, 1998), 11.
46. For an example of a later representation of Anthony tempted
by a female phantasm, see The Temptation of Saint Anthony Abbot
by the Master of the Osservanza Triptych held at the Yale Univer-
sity Art Gallery, New Haven (acq. 1871.57), dated to the second
quarter of the fifteenth century. Originally part of an altarpiece
or large tabernacle, the series includes works now divided among
in his noble robes, stands before the Devil, who is disguised
as a richly dressed nobleman. He offers Anthony a crown, a
sword, and gold chains—a reference to material glory and
the fleeting honors of the world. Here, the Devil in disguise
represents the material world that so sorely tempts Anthony.
Anthony’s reaction to Satan masquerading as wealth is to re-
ject him. He turns away from the Devil as if he is about to flee.
His body contorts to the left, while his head turns almost im-
possibly to the right so as to look at his tormentor. The young
ascetic rejects material wealth beyond measure, recoiling from
the idea that this figure represents.
The episode that follows Anthony’s outright rejection de-
picts the saint in a more surprising pose. A demon disguised
as a woman opens her arms to the young Anthony. With
horns and bat-like wings, the woman recalls the demonic
phantasms discussed earlier; however, here the figure repre-
sents thoughts (conjured by the Devil) of the protection of-
fered by Anthony’s sister. Anthony reclines in a leisurely way
on a solidly architectonic structure in response to the comfort
the sister represents. This is a pose that recalls the figure of
museums in New York, Washington, D.C., and Berlin. On the
Osservanza altarpiece, see Keith Christiansen, Painting in Renais-
sance Siena, 1420–1500 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of
Art, 1988), 104–6; Miklós Boskovits, Italian Paintings of the Fif-
teenth Century (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2003),
491n12, 491.
Demons and Spiritual Focus in Morgan MS M.626 D 111
Figure 8. The Devil submits to Anthony, fol. 6r, ca. 1330–40, New York, The Morgan Library, MS M.626 (photo: The Morgan Library &
Museum. Purchased by J. P. Morgan [1867–1943] in 1916).
Peace in the fresco of the Allegory of Good Government at the
Sala dei Nove in Siena (Fig. 9).47 Anthony presents a meaning-
ful contrast to the monks who clasp the demonic figures in
salacious embraces. Instead of embracing the thought of sis-
terly comfort, Anthony reclines away from it, the embodi-
ment of detachment. Like the figure of Peace, Anthony is at
peace with the threat that the demonic figure poses; he suffers
no inner turmoil.
Anthony’s strategy is shown to be effective in the next il-
lumination (Fig. 8). Anthony stands assured, valiant, and de-
fiant. He points toward the ground, calling for the tempter’s
submission. Anthony’s gesture recalls that of the monk from
John’s exempla (Fig. 3); however, unlike the monk who looks
over the wings of the demonic phantasm—registering its pres-
ence while not looking at it—Anthony looks directly at the
Devil, able to see past the illusion. Compliant, the Devil kneels
before the saint with his hands turned up in entreaty. The Devil,
who previously masqueraded under the guise of wants and
desires, now appears to the saint in his true form.48 This rev-
47. Randolph Starn and Loren Partridge note that the figure of
Peace in the fresco of the Allegory of Good Government recalls fig-
ures on Roman sarcophagi and antique coins; Starn and Partridge,
Arts of Power: Three Halls of State in Italy, 1300–1600, The New
Historicism 19 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 50.
48. In the Life of Anthony, Athanasius writes that the true form
of the Devil is that of a black boy. This representation of the Devil
does not appear in the Morgan manuscript; rather, he is revealed to
112 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
elation is yet another sign of his submission and defeat. The
illustration of Anthony’s victory over the Devil sits directly
opposite the illumination showing his resistance to the Dev-
il’s machinations. The juxtaposition illustrates that disen-
gaging from one’s demons and rejecting them can lead to
mastery over them. This concept takes shape here in the form
of mastery over the Devil, the personage behind the thoughts,
mental images, and urgings that turn one’s focus away from
God.
Refocusing: Turning the Mind Back to God
Recoiling from and despising demonic thoughts, choosing
not to engage with them at all—these are two of the approaches
the Morgan manuscript proposes for doing away with the
urges and thoughts that lead people away from God. A third
approach, the strategy of refocusing, allows the viewer to con-
sider how the mind might turn to God in the event of demonic
besiegement.49 The strategy is best demonstrated in an illus-
tration of a monk who finds himself engaged in nightly battles
Anthony as he was revealed to Job: sparks issue from his mouth
like lamps of incense, his hair is sprinkled with flames, his breath
is like a glowing coal, and a flame leaps forward from his mouth.
See Job 41:9–11; White, Early Christian Lives, 12.
49. My use of the term besiegement accords with Graiver’s use of
the term in Asceticism of the Mind. She defines demonic besiege-
ment as “a demonically induced psychological state characterized

Figure 9. Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Figure of Peace, detail of the fresco
Allegory of Good Government, ca. 1338–40, Palazzo Pubblico,
Siena (photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY).
with the spirit of fornication, a particularly troublesome de-
mon (Fig. 10).50 In the anecdote, the anonymous narrator de-
scribes the battles with the spirit of fornication as raging in the
monk’s heart.51 By this, our narrator means that the young
monk was plagued by thoughts or phantasms—this is a battle
that is waged within the monk.52 Concerned, the monk takes
his problems to a Desert Father, who reassures him that Christ
by uncontrollable preoccupation with sinful thoughts”; Graiver,
Asceticism of the Mind, 129.
50. Migne, PL 73: col. 743. In the Morgan manuscript, the stories
under the title “chapter nine” refer to the virtue “judge no one.” It is
unclear how the story and the illustration exemplify the virtue.
Rufinus of Aquileia’s compilation of the Sayings of the Desert Fa-
thers, which the Morgan manuscript follows, is not organized by
subjects or virtues. It appears that those responsible for the making
of MS M.626 classified the stories under certain chapter headings
even if there was no apparent correspondence.
51. “impugnatio valde conturbabat cor eius,” Morgan MS M.626,
lines 10507–8.
52. According to the Desert Fathers, it was the heart, not the
mind, that registered the pervasive insistence of demons. See Brown,
The Body and Society, 167, 224–25.
Figure 10. Desert Father counsels monk, fol. 59r, ca. 1330–40,
New York, The Morgan Library, MS M.626 (photo: The Morgan
Library & Museum. Purchased by J. P. Morgan [1867–1943] in
1916).
will send help from heaven that will allow him to overcome his
passion.
In the illustration, the harassed monk is depicted point-
ing at a mass of demons swarming inside a domed building.
The dome suggests a temple, evoking the Pauline metaphor
of the body as the temple of the soul.53 Here, both the body
and the soul have been infiltrated. The demons fill the space
to capacity, a sign of the extent of the monk’s trouble. The
monk, who stands outside the building, points at his persecu-
tors, emphatically indicating them as the source of his harass-
ment. The Desert Father who stands just to his right points to
the figure of Christ, who appears just over its dome. The Des-
ert Father seeks to shift the monk’s attention. But like the
monks in John’s anecdotes on pride, this monk’s focus is my-
opic; he is wholly concerned with the cause of his sexual frus-
tration. In urging the monk to shift his focus, the illustration
recommends a strategy to the viewer. The strategy, an inven-
tion of the artist or perhaps the person who planned the Mor-
gan manuscript, expands upon the moral provided in the text
by providing the viewer with pointed instruction. Instead of
devoting your attention to the demonic thoughts that seek to
harass, plague, and distract, it suggests, you must refocus on
Christ.
The concept of refocusing one’s attention, of course, has
a deep and rich history, with roots that can be traced to
early Christianity. According to the Late Antique monk and
53. I Corinthians 6:19.
Demons and Spiritual Focus in Morgan MS M.626 D 113
theologian John Cassian, “A monk’s whole attention should
constantly be fixed on one thing, and the beginnings and
the roundabout turns of all his thoughts should be strenuously
called back to this very thing—that is recollection of God.”54
What Cassian proposes here is a refocusing of attention. When
the mind commits what he calls mental fornicatio, the monk
should draw it firmly back to the object at hand: God.55 In
his Conferences, Cassian suggests three things that will keep
a wandering mind in place: vigils, meditation, and prayer.56
He adds that “constant attention to them and a firm concen-
tration upon them will give stability to the soul.”57 Cassian’s
exhortation remained influential throughout the Middle Ages.
Referencing Cassian’s Conferences of the Desert Fathers, the
fourteenth-century friar Domenico Cavalca recommends to
his lay readers that they read holy scripture often and commit
it to memory so that every other thought that comes to mind is
a divine consideration.58 In this way, the mind is not allowed
to stray too far from God, but returns again and again to his
words.
In the Morgan manuscript, the suggestion to turn one’s
mind and/or thoughts to God is indicated in the emphatic Figure 11. Anonymous monk and Desert Father Zenon, fol. 58v,
ca. 1330–40, New York, The Morgan Library, MS M.626 (photo:
gestures of the Desert Fathers, who insistently remind the
The Morgan Library & Museum. Purchased by J. P. Morgan
monks in their spiritual care of the necessity of this shift. In [1867–1943] in 1916).
an illustration depicting the virtue of self-restraint, we see
the gesture at work again (Fig. 11). The vignette, pithy and picking the fruit. In the end, he restrains himself, motivated
concise, presents at first glance an enigmatic telling of the by the thought that he will suffer the consequences at the
story. In the narrative, the Desert Father Zenon, hungry on hands of both secular and spiritual judges if he indulges.
his way back to Palestine, is tempted to steal a cucumber.59 The illustration departs from the written narrative in sev-
He vacillates between remaining committed to his faith and eral key ways. First, the Desert Father Zenon is replaced as the
protagonist of the story by an anonymous monk who is never
mentioned in the text.60 Second, this monk plunges headlong
54. John Cassian, Collationes, in Iohannis Cassiani Conlationes XXIIII,
ed. Michael Petschenig and G. Kreuz, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasti-
into the cucumber patch, urged on by a demon who grips him
corum Latinorum 13 (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der by the shoulder. Here we see a different articulation of the
Wissenschaften, 2004), 680. English translation by Inbar Graiver, idea presented in the illustrations of monks who accept and
“Conversion and Self-Transformation in Christian Monasticism: A take delight in their demonic phantasms. Whereas the de-
Cognitive Perspective,” Journal of Religion and Health 59 (2020): monic phantasm is the object of attention in the former, in
1610–25.
the latter the demonic phantasm is the motivating force,
55. On Cassian and mental fornicatio, see Carruthers, The Craft
of Thought, 82–83. the initiator of the thoughts that propel the monk into action.
56. Cassian, “Conférences,” in Jean Cassien, Conférences I, ed. Eu- Much like the monks who grasp a demon-conjured image,
gène Pichery, Sources chrétiennes 42 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1955), the monk grasps the cucumbers. Yet, unlike the ill-fated monks
83, trans. in John Cassian, Conferences, trans. Colum Luibheid (New of John’s exempla, this monk is urged to turn his thoughts to
York: Paulist Press, 1985). Christ. To the right, a haloed monk, whom we can only pre-
57. For the English translation, see Carruthers, The Craft of
Thought, 83; Cassian, “Conférences,” 95.
sume to be the Desert Father Zenon, grasps the monk’s sleeve
58. “E adunque dottrina de’ santi Padri nelle Collazioni, che and points toward Christ, who is encircled in a blue arc of
l’uomo debba molto leggere, e cercare d’empiere per sì fatto modo heaven. Christ ensconced in heaven is as immaterial as the
la memoria e la fantasia delle divine Scritture, che ogni altro pensiero
si cacci via dal cuore, e sempre sia la mente intenta alle divine
considerazioni”: Domenico Cavalca, Disciplina degli spirituali col Rufinus (Migne, PL 73: col. 742) and one attributed to Pelagius
trattato delle trenta stoltizie, ed. Giovanni Bottari (Milan: Giovanni (Migne, PL 73: col. 866).
Silvestri, 1838), 93. 60. On spiritual mentorship, see Christine McCann, “Spiritual
59. The brief anecdote is found in two separate collations of the Mentoring in John Cassian’s Conferences,” American Benedictine
Verba seniorum, the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, one attributed to Review 48, no. 2 (1997): 212–23.

114 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021

demon who tugs at the robes of the young monk. To turn to
Christ, then, as the Desert Father suggests, is to turn one’s
thoughts to Christ. It is to move away from the earthly, sensu-
ous temptation that the cucumbers represent and move toward
the spiritual by refocusing one’s attention.
The Morgan’s Vitae patrum is not the only manuscript
with an illustration of the Desert Father Zenon’s struggle with
self-restraint. A comparison between the Morgan illustration
and an illustration of the same anecdote in the only other
richly illuminated manuscript of the Vitae patrum created in
the fourteenth century, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS
Vat. lat. 375 (Fig. 12), not only reveals the Morgan manu-
script to be unique in its approach, but also confirms the in-
tentionality of its strategy.61 In the Vatican manuscript,
Desert Father Zenon is shown alone, sitting in front of what
appear to be gourds instead of cucumbers,62 holding a pitcher
and gnawing on a stick. Unlike the monk who plays the chief
protagonist in the Morgan illumination, the Vatican manu-
script’s Desert Father exemplifies the virtue of self-restraint.
He sits directly in front of the object of temptation and yet
does not look in its direction. In contrast to the Morgan illus-
tration, here there is no struggle—no demon on one side
forcefully urging him to give into temptation while a reminder
of Christ hovers on the other side. While the Vatican manu- Figure 12. Desert Father Zenon sits in front of gourds/exempla on
self-restraint, fol. 61v, ca. 1320, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana,
script concerns itself with providing a pithy and concise exem-
MS Vat. lat. 375 (photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana).
plum of self-restraint, the Morgan manuscript gives visual
expression to the psychic struggle, capturing this internal mo- with words, but then, realizing that they are being ignored, at-
ment so as to instruct the viewers to turn their thoughts to tack the monk with rods. The monk, however, does not relent.
Christ. Realizing that he will not surrender, the demons depart. The
The efficacy of this strategy is presented throughout the monk is never attacked again.
Morgan manuscript; one of the most compelling illustrations The story of the monk’s struggle with and victory over the
comes from the illuminations dedicated to John’s exempla demons is told across one illumination in continuous narra-
on pride (fol. 36r; Fig. 13).63 This illustration depicts the only tion; successive episodes and characters are repeated within
positive exemplum in the series. A monk, having realized that the same frame. Toward the left of the illustration, demons
he has lived in defiance of God’s wishes, abases himself by liv- are depicted mercilessly beating the haloed monk. While he
ing a life of penance. For having chosen this life, the monk is unsuccessfully tries to fend off his attackers with one hand,
attacked day and night by demons. They first torment him the other hand holds open a book, its illegible script facing
the reader. This detail, added by the Morgan illustrators, sug-
gests that the monk is being attacked while reading. The de-
61. On Vat. lat. 375, see note 4. mons here serve as physical distractions. They attempt to tear
62. The Morgan’s Vitae patrum contains a recension of the Verba the monk’s attention away from scripture by inducing bodily
Seniorum believed to have been compiled by the theologian and discomfort. Though we see demons move from within the
historian Rufinus of Aquileia (Migne, PL 73: col. 742), while MS
Vat. lat. 375 contains a recension believed to have been translated
body to outside it, their objective is shown to be the same—
and compiled by Deacon Pelagius (Migne, PL 73: col. 866). Both to disrupt the monk’s focus.
recensions contain similar retellings of the anecdotes and Sayings Whether his demons are within or outside him, the
of the Desert Fathers, with only slight variations. The Rufinus text monk’s goal is to maintain what Hugh St. Victor calls a “con-
is slightly longer than the version of the Verba seniorum included stancy of mind,” fixed in the proper state, focused on God.64
in the recension attributed to Pelagius. The differences between the
depictions of the story of Desert Father Zenon are the results of the
decisions made by the designers of each manuscript.
63. Migne, PL 21: cols. 400–401; The Lives of the Desert Fathers, 64. Hugh of St. Victor, “Expositio super regulum S. Augustini,”
58–59. in Migne, PL 21: col. 892.

Demons and Spiritual Focus in Morgan MS M.626 D 115

Figure 13. Desert Father distracted by demons and then at prayer, fol. 36r, ca. 1330–40, New York, The Morgan Library, MS M.626
(photo: The Morgan Library & Museum. Purchased by J. P. Morgan [1867–1943] in 1916).
In the following scene, the monk is shown praying before an
altar. As he prays, the demons flee, crashing into the bands of
the rectangular border. In the written narrative, there is no
mention of the Desert Father turning to prayer after he is at-
tacked. Prayer as a recourse, then, is an invention of those
who planned the Morgan manuscript’s visual program. In
the illustration, prayer is communicated in terms of the focus
that has been established as significant within the manu-
script. Prayer appears to be the means of vanquishing the de-
mons that plague the monk. When the monk prays to God,
represented here by a blue arc of heaven, the demons flee.
But in addition to being an act that can thwart demons, prayer
is an attitude of the mind that redirects one’s focus to God. If
we look back at the image, we can see that it tries to commu-
nicate this notion to us as well. In the first scene, the monk is
distracted, focused on the bodily discomfort that the demons
cause. In the second, when the monk is in a prayerful state,
the demons have departed.
The concept becomes even more compelling if we consider
the present illustration alongside that of the monk plagued
by the spirit of fornication (Fig. 10). When the monk is focus-
ing on his demons, there is no space for Christ, who hovers
just outside the building that stands as a metaphor for the
body. In contrast to this image, the monk we now consider
is in a prayerful state. With his focus on God, there is no space
for demons. His attention has been fully redirected, and as a
result, he grows closer to God, as evidenced by the blue arc of
heaven above him.
116 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
Lay Devotion and the Vitae patrum
The Lives of the Desert Fathers formed a cornerstone of the
Western monastic tradition from this tradition’s beginning.65
It was not until the later Middle Ages, however, that the Lives
found a larger audience within the laity. In Italy, the settle-
ment of the mendicant orders initiated what Preisinger has
broadly described as “a transfer of monastic forms of life
and piety into urban environments.”66 Obliged to combine
the vita contemplativa with the vita activa, the mendicant fri-
ars sought to balance the increasing demands of a life devoted
to ministering to the laity by turning, once again, to the as-
cetic hermit saints who had inspired their tradition.67 The rise
65. On the Vitae patrum and its relationship to Western monas-
ticism, see Samuel Rubenson, “Christian Asceticism and the Emer-
gence of the Monastic Tradition,” in Asceticism, ed. Vincent L.
Wimbush and Richard Valantasis (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1995), 49–57; Marilyn Dunn, The Emergence of Monasticism:
From the Desert Fathers to the Early Middle Ages (Oxford: Blackwell,
2000); Ambrose Wathen, “La Regula Benedicti ca. 73 e le Vitae
Patrum,” Benedictina 28 (1981): 171–97; and Clifford Hugh Law-
rence, Medieval Monasticism: Forms of Religious Life in Western Eu-
rope in the Middle Ages, 3rd ed. (New York: Longman, 2001), 1–17.
66. Preisinger, “Anachoretic Ideals in Urban Settings,” 180–83.
67. On the tension at play with the settlement of the mendicant
orders in cities, see Alexander Murray, “Archbishop and Mendi-
cants in Thirteenth-Century Pisa,” in Stellung und Wirksamkeit
der Bettelorden in der städtischen Gesellschaft, ed. Kaspar Elm,
Ordenstudien 2; Berliner historische Studien 3 (Berlin: Duncker
of the eremitic ideal is most notably seen in the hagiography
that shaped these orders’ practice and way of life. Hagio-
graphical corpuses such as the Dominican-authored Vitae
fratrum (ca. 1255–60) and the Augustinian hermit-authored
hagiographical treatise Liber vitasfratrum (ca. 1357) are but
two of several examples that illustrate the extent to which
the ideal espoused by the Desert Fathers influenced the men-
dicant ethos of the period.68
Given that among friars’ duties was the task of minister-
ing to the laity, the eremitic ideal found purchase outside
the convent. Thanks to the popularity of the Dominican friar
Jacob de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea (ca. 1260), late medieval
laypeople were familiar with the most esteemed of the Desert
Fathers.69 On the hermit saints’ respective feast days, they
heard readings from the lives of Mary of Egypt, Marina the Dis-
guised, Pelagia, Thais, Anthony, Paul the first hermit, and
Macarius. They also heard stories of lesser-known Desert
Fathers in sermons, which were delivered with increasing fre-
& Humblot, 1981), 19–75. For a general overview of the mendicant
orders’ valorization of the Desert Fathers and the eremitic ideal, see
Carlo Delcorno, “Le ‘Vitae Patrum’ nella letteratura religiosa me-
dievale (secc. XIII–XV),” Lettere italiane 43, no. 2 (1991): 187–
207. See also Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein, “Social
Meaning in the Monastic and Mendicant Spiritualities,” Past &
Present 63 (1974): 4–32; and Lester K. Little, Religious Poverty
and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (Ithaca: Cornell Uni-
versity Press, 1983).
68. On the Vitae fratrum, see Alain Boureau, “‘Vitae fratrum, Vi-
tae patrum.’ L’ordre dominicain et le modèle des Pères du desert au
XIIIe siècle,” Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen-Âge,
Temps modernes 99, no. 1 (1987): 79–100; Lives of the Brethren of
the Order of Preachers, 1206–1259: In the Translation of Fr. Placid
Conway, ed. Bede Jarrett, trans. John Placid Conway (London:
Burns, Oates and Washbourne, 1924); and Géraud de Frachet, Storie
e leggende medievali: le “Vitæ fratrum,” trans. Pietro Lippini (Bolo-
gna: Studio Domenicano, 1988). On Jordan of Quedlinburg’s Liber
Vitasfratrum, see Eric Saak, “Ex Vita Patrum Formatur Vita Frat-
rum’: The Appropriation of the Desert Fathers in the Augustinian
Monasticism of the Later Middle Ages,” Church History and Reli-
gious Culture 86, no. 1 (2006): 191–228, at 225–28; Jordan of Qued-
linburg, Liber vitasfratrum, ed. Rudolf Arbesmann and Winfried
Hümpfner (New York: Cosmopolitan Science & Art Service, 1943);
and Jordan of Quedlinburg, The Life of the Brethren, ed. Rotelle.
69. On Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda Aurea, see Speranza
Cerullo, “La traduzione della Legenda aurea,” in Tradurre dal latino
nel Medioevo italiano: “translatio studii” e procedure linguistiche, ed.
Lino Leonardi and Speranza Cerullo (Florence: del Galluzzo per
la Fondazione Ezio Franceschini, 2017), 69–120; and Jacobus de
Voragine, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. William
Granger Ryan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). Also of
interest is Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda aurea: con le miniature del
codice Ambrosiano C 240 inf., ed. Giovanni Paolo Maggioni, trans.
coord. Francesco Stella, Edizione nazionale dei testi mediolatini 20
(Florence: SISMEL edizioni del Galluzzo; Milan: Biblioteca Ambro-
siana, 2007).
quency in the vernacular. Jacques de Vitry’s Sermones vul-
gares, an outstanding “exemplum book” of the thirteenth
century, is filled with exempla from the Vitae patrum.70 In
several of his sermons, the Dominican friar Giordano da Ri-
valto exhorts his congregation to read the lives of the holy
Desert Fathers.71 The Life of Anthony, he says, highly recom-
mends a life of penance, of great abstinence, and of constant
contemplation.72 Underlying Giordano’s injunction to read
from the Lives of the Desert Fathers—an act that was possible
thanks to the vernacularization of the text by the Dominican
friar Giordano Cavalca73—is the idea that the faithful should
see these Desert Fathers as models of piety that they should
aspire to emulate.74 Letters of spiritual direction affirm this
70. On Jacques de Vitry’s Sermones Vulgares, see Jacques de Vitry,
Sermones vulgares vel ad status: prologus et sermones I–XXXVI, Cor-
pus christianorum continuatio mediaevalis 225 (Turnhout: Bre-
pols, 2016).
71. Giordano da Rivalto, Prediche del beato Fra Giordano da ri-
valto dell’ordine dei predicatori recitate in Firenze dal 1303 al 1306 1,
ed. D. Morení (Florence: Magheri, 1831), 242. “Leggesi di santi padri
che n’hanno fatti grandi fatti per domare la lingua, e sonsi fuggiti e stati
molto tempo in silenzio; e di tale si legge vent’anni che non parlò per
domarla bene.”
72. “Leggesi di quello grande Santo Antonio d’Egitto, che fu così
grande santo, il quale è commendato di cotanta penitenzia, che fece
così grande astinenzia, e stette in tanta contemplazione. Molto è
commendato quel Santo Maccario, che ‘l seguitò, di grande vita.
Questi, conciosiacosachè fossero così perfetti”: Giordano da Rivalto,
Prediche recitate in Firenze, 237.
73. Stripped of scholarly digressions and rhetorical flourishes, Le
Vite de’ Santi Padri (ca. 1320–42) was written for uomini semplici, or
simple men, such as the less educated monk or the interested lay
reader. The translation proved a veritable bestseller. Extant manu-
scripts and inventory lists reveal that it was one of the most widely
circulated texts of the late Middle Ages. On Domenico Cavalca, see
Alfonso Zacchi, Di fra Domenico Cavalca e delle sue opere (Florence:
Tip. Domenicana, 1920). On the friar’s vernacularization of the text
Le Vite de’ Santi Padri, see Carlo Delcorno, La Tradizione delle “Vite
dei Santi Padri,” Classe di scienze morali, lettere ed arti 92 (Venice:
Istituto veneto di scienze lettere ed arti, 2000); Domenico Cavalca,
Vite dei santi padri, ed. Carlo Delcorno, Archivio romanzo 15 (Flor-
ence: Edizioni del Galluzzo per la Fondazione Ezio Franceschini,
2009); and Domenico Cavalca, Cinque vite di eremiti dalle “Vite
dei santi padri,” ed. Carlo Delcorno (Venice: Marsilio, 1992).
74. Some of the faithful, such as Umiliana de’ Cerchi, actually
withdrew from an engaged and active life in the city to live in eremo.
Umiliana de’ Cerchi lived as a recluse in her family’s tower in the
center of Florence. While under the strictest self-discipline and as-
ceticism, she imagined herself living like the Desert Fathers and
Mothers, “in the craggy mountains and in the desert in solitude.”
André Vauchez, “L’idéal de sainteté dans le mouvement féminin
franciscain aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles,” in Movimento religioso fem-
minile e francescanesimo nel secolo XIII: atti del VII Convengo
internazionale Assisi, 11–13 ottobre 1979, ed. Roberto Rusconi (As-
sisi: Società internazionale di studi francescani, 1980), 315–37, at
329. On the life of Umiliana, see Anna Benvenuti Papi, “Umiliana
Demons and Spiritual Focus in Morgan MS M.626 D 117
idea; the Lives were recommended reading not only for
those who were seeking to form a mystical union with
God, but also for those who wanted to stir up within them-
selves “a greater love of virtue.”75
The monasticization of the laity, which can be seen in the
foundation of penitential confraternities and of associations
of tertiary orders, demonstrates a shift in late medieval spir-
ituality that is underscored by the revival of the Desert Fa-
thers and the rise of the eremitic ideal.76 When, in a sermon
on the first day of Lent in 1305, the Dominican friar Giordano
da Pisa urged his listeners to seek out their own “desert,” his
exhortation emblematized a renewed emphasis on prayer and
meditation not simply for monks and friars, but also for the
laity.77 Attention was considered a necessary condition of
these activities.78 As Thomas Aquinas explains in his Summa
theologiae, “prayer is ‘the ascent of the mind to God.’ But the
dei Cerchi: nascita di un culto nella Firenze del Dugento,” Studi
francescani 77 (1980): 87–117. Others chose to leave the city, al-
though they did not go far. Pursuing the eremitic ideal of completely
renouncing a life ruled by the values and morals of urban society,
they lived in cells on the periphery of growing cities or near churches
close to the cemetery walls. On the lay eremitic movement, see Luigi
Pellegrini, “A proposito di eremiti laici d’ispirazione francescana,”
in I Frati minori e il terzo ordine: problemi e discussioni storiogra-
fiche, 17–20 ottobre 1982, Convegni del centro di studi sulla spirit-
ualità medievale 23 (Todi: Presso l’Accademia tudertina, 1985),
115–42. See also Mauro Ronzani, “Penitenti e ordini mendicanti a
Pisa sino all’inizio del Trecento,” in Mélanges de l’École française
de Rome (Moyen-Âge, Temps modernes) 89, no. 2 (1977): 733–41.
75. On letters of spiritual direction that reference the Vitae
patrum, see Carlo Delcorno, “Le ‘Vitae Patrum’ nella letteratura re-
ligiosa medievale (secc. XIII–XV),” Lettere italiane 43 (1991): 187–
207, at 205–6.
76. On the “monasticization of the laity,” see note 15. The term
“Monachisierung der Laien” originated in Adolf Harnack’s Lehr-
buch der Dogmengeschichte 3 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1910), 446.
77. For Giordano, the desert was not a physical space but rather,
as Lina Bolzoni has observed, “a condition of inner isolation that
makes meditation and contemplation possible”; Bolzoni, The Web
of Images, 22. For Giordano’s sermon, see Giordano da Pisa,
Quaresimale fiorentino, 1305–1306, ed. Carlo Delcorno (Florence:
Sansoni, 1974), 38–43. On the Dominican friar Giordano da Pisa,
see Lina Bolzoni, “Predicazione in volgare e uso delle immagini, da
Giordano da Pisa a San Bernardino da Siena,” in Letteratura in forma
di sermone: i rapporti tra predicazione e letteratura nei secoli XIII–
XVI: atti del Seminario di studi (Bologna, 15–17 novembre 2001),
Biblioteca di “Lettere italiane” 60 (Florence: Olschki, 2003), 29–52;
Carlo Delcorno, Giordano da Pisa e l’antica predicazione volgare,
Biblioteca di “Lettere italiane” 14 (Florence: Olschki, 1975); Carlo
Delcorno, L’exemplum nella predicazione volgare di Giordano da
Pisa, Memorie–Classe di scienze morali, lettere ed arti 36:1 (Venice:
Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 1972).
78. On Thomas of Aquinas’s consideration of prayer, see David
Marno, Death Be Not Proud: The Art of Holy Attention (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2016), 85–87.
118 E Gesta v60n1, Spring 2021
mind does not ascend to God if the prayer is inattentive.”79
Sustaining unwavering attention, however, was not an easy
task. As Aquinas acknowledges in the same passage on atten-
tion, “Even holy men sometimes suffer from a wandering of
the mind when they pray.”80 The cultivation of attention re-
quired practice and vigilance; Aquinas suggests, quoting Ba-
sil, “If you are so truly weakened by sin that you are unable to
pray attentively, strive as much as you can to curb yourself,
and God will pardon you, seeing that you are unable to stand
in His presence in a becoming manner, not through negli-
gence but through frailty.”81 It was necessary to keep a firm
hold on one’s thoughts so that their comings and goings
“should not flow in and out in their own eddying way.”82
The illustrations in the Morgan manuscript allow us to con-
sider how images might have played a role in developing and
honing the skill of attention.83 By consistently highlighting
spiritual focus, in both its negative and positive applications,
the illustrations draw attention to the habits of the mind that
disrupt or facilitate prayer, meditation, and contemplation. In
so doing, they demonstrate how attention and focus can be
reforged so that the constancy of mind recommended by
Hugh of St. Victor can be maintained.
Conclusion
The concept of attention as it is explored in the Morgan
manuscript adds to our understanding of the ways in which
fourteenth-century images illustrated and even inculcated
habits of mind. Though it is clear that people’s mental stance
affected their devotional practice, the question of how the
medieval habitus might have informed the reading of images
79. Thomas Aquinas, “Is Attention Necessary during Prayer,”
Summa Theologiae 33, ed. Thomas Gilby, Hope, 2a 2ae 17–22
(London: Blackfriars, 1966), 83–85. Aquinas allows for a little in-
attentiveness in prayer, acknowledging that it is the mind’s natural
condition to stray, but he does not condone intentional wandering.
80. Ibid., 85.
81. Ibid., 87.
82. Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 83.
83. For an excellent discussion of how late medieval and Renais-
sance images might have helped the viewer hone the discipline of
attention, see Robert W. Gaston, “Attention in Court: Visual De-
corum in Medieval Prayer Theory and Early Italian Art,” in Visions
of Holiness: Art and Devotion in Renaissance Italy, ed. Andrew
Ladis and Shelley E. Zuraw, Georgia Museum of Art; Studies in
the History of Art 4 (Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, 2001), 137–
62; and Robert W. Gaston, “Attention and Inattention in Religious
Painting of the Renaissance: Some Preliminary Observations,” in Re-
naissance Studies in Honour of Craig Hugh Smythe, ed. Andrew
Morrogh et al., Villa i Tatti Series 7 (Florence: Giunti Barbèra,
1985), 2:253–76. See also Sara Lipton, Dark Mirror: The Medieval Or-
igins of Anti-Jewish Iconography (New York: Metropolitan Books,
2014), 246–52.
and architectural space has just begun to be considered.84
Klaus Krüger has argued, for example, that Bildkontempla-
tion, or image devotion, was one way the faithful could inter-
act with visual works to achieve a deeper connection with
God.85 Through concentrated and focused contemplation of
devotional objects, the faithful could achieve the sensory ex-
perience of penitential isolation and reap the main benefit of a
life in the desert: connection with God. The Morgan manu-
script, whose illustrations were not made for Bildkontem-
plation, indicates how images without this specific function
could develop and cultivate the habits intended to strengthen
it. By gazing at and learning from images, the viewer could
cultivate the inner condition that makes meditation and con-
templation possible. The illustrations in the Morgan’s Vitae
patrum—with their sometimes enigmatic depictions and em-
phatic hand gestures—invite us to consider not just the moral
edification of the faithful, but also the participation of images
in the diffusion of a spiritual model that taught the fourteenth-
century faithful how to disengage from worldly desire and re-
connect with God.

84. For informative examples, see Erik Gustafson, “Medieval

Franciscan Architecture as Charismatic Space,” in Faces of Charisma:
Image, Text, Object in Byzantium and the Medieval West, ed. Bedos-
Rezak and Martha Rust, Explorations in Medieval Culture 9 (Leiden:
Brill, 2018), 323–47.
85. Klaus Krüger, “Bildandacht und Bergeinsamkeit: Der Eremit
als Rollenspiel in der städtischen Gesellschaft,” in Malerei und
Stadtkultur in der Dantezeit, ed. Belting and Blume, 187–200. For
additional discussion of the role of images in personal devotion dur-
ing the fourteenth century, see also Victor M. Schmidt, Painted Pi-
ety: Panel Paintings for Personal Devotion in Tuscany, 1250–1400
(Florence: Centro Di, 2005); Hans Belting, Das Bild und sein Publi-
kum im Mittelalter: Form und Funktion früher Bildtafeln der Passion
(Berlin: Mann, 1981); Robert Suckale, “Arma Christi: Überlegun-
gen zur Zeichenhaftigkeit mittelalterlicher Andachtsbilder,” Städel-
Jahrbuch n.s. 6 (1977): 177–208.

Demons and Spiritual Focus in Morgan MS M.626 D 119