It was during the Renaissance that perfume, a princely pastime in Italian courts, became an art form in France. And when François Rabelais imagined the Abbey of Thelema as a utopian center of humanist culture, he included the use of the most delicate fragrances—such as rose water, orange blossom water, and angel water—amid the refined pleasures of his monks and nuns…harmonious, refined, and pleasant. It is to François Rabelais, the most illustrious member of the dynasty, that the Maison Frapin he dedicated the Humaniste, una an enveloping and clear fragrance like the curious and open mind of the Renaissance man.