It was discovered on 26 February 1981, by European astronomers Henri Debehogne and Giovanni de Sanctis at ESO's La Silla Observatory in northern Chile.
[2] De Sanctis a member of the Vesta family (401) when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements.
[3] Vestian asteroids have a composition akin to cumulate eucrites and are thought to have originated deep within 4 Vesta's crust, possibly from the Rheasilvia crater, a large impact crater on its southern hemisphere near the South pole, formed as a result of a subcatastrophic collision.
[2] A first rotational lightcurve of De Sanctis was obtained from photometric observations by Polish astronomer Wiesław Wiśniewski at the University of Arizona.
[7] According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, De Sanctis measures 6.033 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of 0.228,[5][6] while the Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.24 – derived from 8 Flora, the parent body of the Flora family – and derives a diameter of 5.88 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 13.32.