  Gassendi borrows heavily on themes set out by earlier Italian space and time theorists, including Campanella, Bruno, Telesio, and Patrizi. One possible advance is suggested by his discussion of such an ontology as a prelude to his matter theory: space and time are pre-conditions for the existence of substance, rather than properties of substances (as the Aristotelians would have it). In this regard, Rochot (1971) proposes that Gassendi's ontology provides atoms as stable entities and absolute space-time as a stable environment, which together allow for a greater reliability of empirical data hence a greater reliability of our data reception. The notion is that those data have some fixity at the source, at least, given that the space-time environment that contains material elements giving rise to such data are unbended by relativistic position to anything else. Naturally, such fixity would be only a necessary condition, and even fails to provide guarantees at the level of basic sensory data, which Gassendi recognizes in his discussion of the Skepticist tropes.