  Another Renaissance-type element of Gassendi's writings is his stylistic obsession with antiquity. His Latin is learned if a bit stultified, rife with quotations from Virgil, Horace, Cicero, Tertullian, and others. An embroidered, ornate quality marks his few extant French writings, too. He quotes frequently and liberally from classical sources, usually in Latin though sometimes in Greek, and his translation of Diogenes Laertius's Book X on the life of Epicurus is the centerpiece of his 1649 Animadversiones. Gassendi does not, as does Descartes, suggest his work is so modern as to have been invented de novo. Rather, he constantly refers the reader to a wide variety of other, generally classical writers as sources of both like-minded and conflicting perspectives. Finally, the single most time-consuming project of his career consists in his prodigious efforts towards reviving the works and reputation of one particular classical figure, Epicurus.