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François Rabelais

1494 – 1553 · Seuilly

François Rabelais

A monk, a doctor, and two giants who ate their way toward wisdom.

Born Seuilly, France

About

François Rabelais was born around 1494 in the French countryside near Chinon. He entered a monastery young, first as a Franciscan and then as a Benedictine, but he grew restless inside the cloister. So he left it to study medicine, law, Greek and Latin, and became a respected doctor, which was rare for a writer of his time. Only much later in life did he take a parish living as priest, at Meudon near Paris. He also studied botany and anatomy, and he poured all of it into his books.

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