SOURCE: “Gassendi's Life of Peiresc: The Humanist's Unattainable Goal of Writing a Universal History,” in Gassendi the Atomist: Advocate of History in an Age of Science, Cambridge University Press, 1987, pp. 41-65.
In this excerpt, Joy considers Gassendi as a historian, using an examination of his early Life of Peiresc to demonstrate the development of his historiography. Finally, Joy proposes, Gassendi's recognition of the futility of Peiresc's “universal history” fueled his later development and expansion of Epicurean philosophy.
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