Page - 4 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Introduction4 leader of one of more than two dozen expeditions committed to the same task and scattered all over the globe, to the 1769 Venus transit observations and the ensuing calculations of the solar parallax (and, by implication, the distance between the Earth and the Sun). They also dwell on the dispute the results oc- casioned between Hell and several colleagues, particularly the Parisian astron- omer Joseph Jérôme de Lalande (1732–1807), as well as the subsequent accusa- tions that Hell had falsified data, and his “vindication” from these charges several decades later. These accounts are marked by generally sound scholar- ship, a fine eye for detail, and, sometimes, excellent story-telling and hilarious anecdotes, a sense for the drama and heroism, the hope and despair, the tri- umph and failure involved in the cultivation and progress of scientific knowl- edge, especially in field expeditions. However, they usually capture their sub- jects in static moments rather than in the dynamics of their movement across temporal and spatial boundaries, in real and symbolic terms. Apart from ges- tures toward the perceived need of paying attention to factors of patronage and institutional setting, they fail, or make little effort, to systematically ac- knowledge the character of scientific knowledge production as a social and cultural practice, one thoroughly intertwined with other similar practices, de- termined by and determining agendas other than deriving from the desire to advance the disciplines. The premises on which they rest are different from this book, and they are insufficiently contextualized. The other thrust of modern scholarship, in which Hell is not merely a sup- porting cast member but takes center stage, and in which the attitude of Döb- rentei may be traced, is even more pronouncedly conceived in the heroic mold, although the framing is different. In this literature, Hell has been hailed as the first3 practitioner in his field in his home region who not only successfully ad- opted and applied the most recent—Newtonian—advances in the discipline but also made original and substantial contributions to its further develop- ment. As a statement of fact, this is not at all mistaken. What is noteworthy, however, is that this claim is combined not only with the sentimentalized (Paris: Vuibert/Adept, 2004); Andrea Wulf, Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens (New York: Penguin, 2012); Mark Anderson, The Day the World Discovered the Sun: An Extra- ordinary Story of Scientific Adventure and the Race to Track the Transit of Venus (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2012). 3 Or, at any rate, one of the first: the Ragusan Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich/Ruđer Josip Bošković (1711–87) is a (more) famous contemporary counterpart. For overviews of his life and contributions, see Piers Bursill-Hall, “Introduction,” in R.J. Boscovich: Vita e attività scien- tifica; His Life and Scientific Work, ed. Piers Bursill-Hall (Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, 1993), v–xxiii; Jonathan A. Wright, “Ruggiero Boscovich (1711–1787): Jesuit Science in an Enlightenment Context,” in Enlightenment and Catholicism in Europe: A Transnational His- tory, ed. Jeffrey D. Burson and Ulrich Lehner (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2014), 353–70.