But in Don Quixote there is not a single detail which would suggest that Cervantes knew Rabelais' book or owed anything to it whatsoever, even the starting-point of his subject.

Perhaps it was better he should not have been influenced by him, in however slight a degree; his originality is the more intact and the more genial.
On the other hand, Rabelais has been several times translated into German.
In the present century Regis published at Leipsic, from 1831 to 1841, with copious notes, a close and faithful translation.

The first one cannot be so described, that of Johann Fischart, a native of Mainz or Strasburg, who died in 1614.

He was a Protestant controversialist, and a satirist of fantastic and abundant imagination.

In 1575 appeared his translation of Rabelais' first book, and in 1590 he published the comic catalogue of the library of Saint Victor, borrowed from the second book.