Saint Leonard was born in Limoges, France in the early 500’s, shortly after King Clovis I converted to Christianity. According to legend he was a Frankish noble who left the king’s court and took up the life of a hermit. As sometimes happens to holy hermits, he was discovered and inundated with requests for prayer and help. He answered them generously.

Gerrit Dou, a Dutch painter, produced The Hermit around 1670. (NGA public domain) This isn’t Saint Leonard; he wouldn’t have dressed, but it’s a lovely image of hermits in general.

The entry in New Advent for Leonard is uncharacteristically savage. It suggests that every element of his story is open to question. Even that story admits that once people began to ask Saint Leonard for intercession he was amazingly prolific in achieving freedom for prisoners, safe childbirth, and cures for disease. The fact that he is still on the calendar after all the changes wrought in the 1960’s says that such skepticism was … possibly unwarranted?

The NGA has a picture of Saint Leonard in Jacques Callot’s Calendar of Saints, (1632-33). Saint Leonard is in the upper right along with prisoners waiting to have their chains struck off (I think). Also pictured are Saints Philoteus and Theotimus, Saint Florentinus, and Saint Godfrey.

This non-specific hermit engraved by a Czech artist was one of several engravings from the National Gallery of Art depicting hermits in general.

And here is Saint William the Hermit by the French artist Balthazar Moncornet (1600-1668). The picture is exquisite!