5666 Rabelais & François Rabelais - Place Anatole France (Tours, France)
N 47° 23.791 E 000° 41.057
31T E 325256 N 5251829
Main-belt asteroid 5666 Rabelais (1982 TP1) bears name of prominent French Renaissance writer and poet François Rabelais. The given coordinates mark his statue located in Place Anatole France in Tours.
Waymark Code: WMVCT1
Location: Centre-Val-de-Loire, France
Date Posted: 04/02/2017
Views: 10
Main-belt asteroid 5666 Rabelais (1982 TP1) bears name of prominent French Renaissance writer and poet François Rabelais. The given coordinates mark his statue located in Place Anatole France in Tours.
Asteroid 5666 Rabelais (1982 TP1) was discovered by Russian astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina at Crimean Astrophysical Observatory on October 14, 1982.
The marble Rabelais statue is work of French sculptor Etienne Henri Dumaige from 1880. Statue is over 3 m high (approx. 2× life size), showing standing Rabelais with slightly ironic smile in his face, weared in traditional Renaissance monk cassock and holding manuscript in the left and quill in the right hand.
François Rabelais (1494–1553) was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs. His best known work is Gargantua and Pantagruel. [wiki]