The Temptation of Saint Anthony

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (French La Tentation de Saint Antoine) is a book which the French author Gustave Flaubert spent practically his whole life fitfully working on, in three versions he completed in 1849, 1856 (extracts published at the same time) and 1872 before publishing the final version in 1874. It takes as its subject the famous temptation faced by Saint Anthony the Great in the Egyptian desert, a theme often repeated in medieval and modern art.


It is written in the form of a play script. It details one night in the life of Anthony the Great during which he is faced with great temptations, and it was inspired by the painting, which he saw at the Balbi Palace in Genoa.