Page - 24 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Introduction24 projects.68 In addition, thanks to the nature and dimensions of their mission- ary activity, Jesuits played a pre-eminent role in integrating the natural and human-cultural universe of the overseas world into European knowledge structures, as well as in the processes of negotiation between European and non-European forms of knowledge.69 At the end of this overview of Jesuit science in the early modern period, a final issue that needs brief consideration is raised by the scholarly preoccupa- tion with the sixteenth and especially the seventeenth century. The question of how much vitality Jesuit science preserved in the Age of Enlightenment, when Jesuits were supposedly regarded with ever greater hostility as obstacles to progress, is of particular relevance to the subject of this book. After the consoli- dation of the decades between 1620s and the 1680s, when Jesuit science repre- sented a “well-defined intellectual alternative on the European cultural map,” a growing marginalization ensued because of the inability to integrate ele- ments of the new science, such as Cartesian analytical geometry or Johannes Kepler’s (1571–1630) laws.70 Yet, while a great deal of work remains to be done, it is safe to assert that “flexibility and adaptability,” identified as characteristic Jesuit traits, continued to operate reasonably well. The Jesuits were particu- larly adept in facilitating the circulation and wider appeal of scientific achieve- ments: the Mémoires pour l’histoire des sciences et des beaux-arts (Memoirs for the history of the sciences and the fine arts, commonly known as the Journal de 68 Denis De Lucca, Jesuits and Fortifications: The Contribution of Jesuits to Military Architec- ture in the Baroque Age (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Geert Vanpaemel, “Jesuit Mathematicians, Military Architecture, and the Transmission of Technical Knowledge,” in The Jesuits and the Low Countries: Identity and Impact (1540–1773), ed. Rob Faesen and Leo Kenis (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), 109–28; Alessandra Fiocca, “Ferrara e i gesuiti in materia d’acque,” in Gesuiti e università in Europa (secoli xvi–xviii), ed. Gian Paolo Brizzi and Roberto Greci (Bolo- gna: clueb, 2002), 339–59; Fiocca, “I gesuiti e il governo delle acque del basso Po nel secolo xvii,” in Giambattista Riccioli e il merito scientifico dei gesuiti nell’età Barocca, ed. Maria Teresa Borgato (Florence: Olschki, 2002), 319–70. 69 Of the extensive literature, see Steven J. Harris, “Mapping Jesuit Science: The Role of Trav- el in the Geography of Knowledge,” in The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts 1540–1773, ed. John W. O’Malley et al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 1:213–40; Florence C. Hsia, Sojourners in a Strange Land: Jesuits and Their Scientific Missions in Late Imperial China (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009); Andrés I. Prieto, Missionary Scientists: Jesuit Science in Missionary South America, 1570–1810 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2011); Antonella Romano, Impressions de Chine: L’Europe et l’englobement du monde (xvie–xviie siècle) (Paris: Fayard, 2016). 70 Rivka Feldhay, “The Cultural Field of Jesuit Science,” in O’Malley et al., Jesuits, 107–30. Feldhay also emphasizes the dynamics of the nexus of scientific discourse, institutional setting, and wider political context in circumscribing the “field” (in the sense introduced by Pierre Bourdieu [1930–2002]) of Jesuit science.