288 
Hzllvry Of 
Caricature and 
Gratewue 
CHAPTER 
XVII. 
DIABLERIE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.iEARLY TYPES OF THE 
      
TASTE FOR SUCH SUBJECTS IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH 
CENTURY.lTHE FLEMISH SCHOOL OF  FRENCH AND 
ITALIAN SCHOOLS, CALLOT, SALVATOR ROSA. 
L 
WE have feen how the popular demonology furnithed materials for 
the earlielt exercife of comic art in the middle ages, and how the 
talte for this particular clafs of grotefque lafted until the clofe of the 
mediaeval period. After the " renaiifance" of art and literature, this 
tatte took a (till more remarkable form, and the fchool of grotefque 
dial-[Erie which flourilhed during the fixteenth century, and the Grit half 
01 the feventeenth, juttly claims a chapter to itfelf. 
The birthplace of this demonology, as far as it belongs to Chriltianity, 
mutt probably be fought in the deferts of Egypt. It fpread thence over 
the eatt and the weft, and when it reached our part of the world, it grafted 
itfelf, as I have remarked in a former chapter, on the exitling popular 
fuperftitions of Teutonic paganifm. The playfully burlefque, which held 
lb great a place in thefe fuperftitions, no doubt gave a more comic cha- 
racter to this Chrittian demonology than it had po{TeH'ed before the mix- 
ture. Its primitive reprefeutative was the Egyptian monk, St. Anthony, 
who is {aid to have been born at a village called Coma, in Upper Egypt, 
in the year 25x. His hiftory was written in Greek by St. Athanatius, 
and was tranflated into Latin by the eccletiaftical hiltorian Evagrius. 
Anthony was evidently a fanatical vifionary, fubjeet to mental illuhons, 
which were foltered by his education. To efcape from the temptations 
of the world, he fold all his property, which was conhderable, gave it to 
the poor, and then retired into the defert of the Thebaid, to live a life of 
the