Page - 51 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

51The Making of a Jesuit Astronomer in the Habsburg Provinces well as a professor at the Montanische Schule in Banská Štiavnica, also con- structed an observatory there as a base for his lectures in astronomy, and in- spired the young Maximilian Hell to study the subject. Unfortunately, there are no sources corroborating this attractive assumption.41 It is certain, however, that Mikoviny taught Hell’s brother Joseph Karl, as well as other distinguished figures of the local mining scene, such as Christoph Traugott Delius (1728–79), who would also become a professor at the same school.42 Another important polymath associated with the school in its early years was the botanist and medical doctor Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin, appointed as professor of Berg- wissenschaften (mineralogy and chemistry) in Banská Štiavnica in 1762. Von Jacquin, of French background but a native of Leiden, was invited to Vienna by the Dutch court physician and reformer Gérard van Swieten (1700–72), with whom he finished his studies. He then embarked, on commission from Em- peror Francis i (1708–65, r.1745–65), on a long voyage to the West Indies (1755– 59), returning with ethnographic objects as well as plant and animal speci- mens for the Schönbrunn gardens. After a period at the Praktische Lehrschule, von Jacquin became the director of the new Viennese Botanical Gardens, and at the end of his long life he served as rector of the university.43 41 Pärr, Maximilian Hell, 76, 124. The account of an observatory in Banská Štiavnica seems to be based on a misunderstanding. The source, Programma de speculis uranicis celebriori- bus [Lecture concerning famous astronomical observatories], was presented by Johann Heinrich Müller (1671–1731) in Altdorf (where Mikoviny later studied) on August 15, 1713 (not 1723, as alleged by Pärr); it was later included in a volume of collected works from 1731. In this Programma, Müller explicitly mentions that he has recently built an observa- tory in Altdorf. There is no mention whatsoever of Banská Štiavnica in this source. See Joh. Henrici Muelleri, In Universitate Norimbergensium Altorfina Philosophiae Nat. & Math- em. Professoris Publici, Collegium Experimentale: In quo Ars experimentandi, praemissa brevi eius delineatione, Potioribus aevi recentioris Inventis ac Speciminibus, de Aere, Aqua, Igne ac Terrestribus, explanatur ac illustratur, & ad genuinum Scopum Usumque accom- modatur (Nuremberg: Endterus, 1731), 254–67, especially 266–67. 42 Delius’s work Anleitung zu der Bergbaukunst nach der Theorie und Ausübung (1773), be- sides Poda’s Kurzgefaßte Beschreibung, mentioned above, is also the chief primary source from which the devices constructed by Matthäus Cornelius and Joseph Karl Höll are known. 43 On the significant contributions of von Jacquin as a botanist, see Maria Petz- Grabenbauer, “Zu Leben und Werk von Nikolaus Joseph Freiherr von Jacquin,” Wiener Geschichtsblätter 50, no. 3 (1995): 121–50; Klemun and Hühnel, Nikolaus Joseph Jacquin. A friend of von Lin- né whose system he championed in Austria and applied to the local flora in a series of monumental publications, von Jacquin’s chief works also included the Selectarum stirpi- um americanarum historia (1763), which has been made available in a splendid edition with a substantial introduction. See Santiago Madriñán, Nikolaus Joseph Jacquin’s Ameri- can Plants: Botanical Expedition to the Caribbean (1754–1759) and the Publication of the Se- lectarum stirpium americanarum historia (Leiden: Brill, 2013).