André Tiraqueau


André Tiraqueau was a French jurist and politician. He is known also as a patron of François Rabelais, and the character Trinquamelle in Gargantua and Pantagruel is traditionally identified with Tiraqueau.
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Life

He was a legal humanist based in Fontenay-le-Comte, Poitou, where he knew Amaury Bouchard. He married Marie Cailler, daughter of Artus Caillier, a legal officer at Fontenay; the marriage took place in 1512, when she was still very young, and he proceeded with two works on the Querelle des femmes and married life.
Tiraqueau held the local legal offices of juge-châtelain and lieutenant. He was appointed a counsellor of the Parlement of Paris in 1531.
Pierre Bayle included a chapter on "Books and Children" in his Historical and Critical Dictionary calling into question a claim that Tiraqueau fathered 45 children and wrote as many books, creating one of each per year.

Works

Tiraqueau had a reputation as a prolific writer.
He wrote a commentary on the Geniales dies of Alessandro Alessandri.
Tiraqueau's works were collected, firstly in five volumes, and then in seven. The arrangement in the seven-volume edition is:
Rabelais met Tiraqueau during his time as an Observantine Franciscan at Fontenay; he participated in the humanist circle there, in the early 1520s. Tiraqueau was the dedicatee of an edition by Rabelais of the letters of Giovanni Manardi.
As Rabelais was writing his Tiers Livre, Tiraqueau was collecting authorities for his work on nobility. It has been suggested that Rabelais took largely from Tiraqueau's references. Tiraqueau apparently cooled towards Rabelais in later life, and played down his public disagreement with Amaury Bouchard over women.