Page - 53 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

53The Making of a Jesuit Astronomer in the Habsburg Provinces Maximilian Hell was born and raised in a closely knit region marked by abundant natural resources and a potential for economic prosperity, ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural diversity, and strong civic traditions, includ- ing those of municipal self-government as well as urban sociability and sensi- tivity to the value of intellectual and educational goods. During the “long cen- tury” of his lifetime, the region saw periods of calamity and instability as well as recovery, in which local tradition and initiative intersected with the increas- ingly systematic endeavor of the Habsburg state apparatus to support tech- nological innovation, with a view to the rationalization and maximization of resource exploitation. Maximilian’s family legacy and environment comprised geographic and social mobility and adaptability, high levels of personal integ- rity and authority, as well as intellectual adroitness and ingenuity. Altogeth- er,  this was a heavy baggage of assets for the ambitious youngest son of the seventy-year old Oberkunstmeister of the Banská Štiavnica mines. 3 Apprenticeship Maximilian Hell grew up in a respectable, mansion-like family home. It was still standing on the steep slope opposite the “maiden fortress” of Banská Štiavnica, a fortified tower erected in the sixteenth century to watch out for movements of Turkish raiders, at the time when his early twentieth-century biographer described the early circumstances of his life.46 Little else is known about these circumstances, apart from the fact that after completing elemen- tary school in Banská Štiavnica, his path diverted from what seems to have been regular in the family. Unlike Joseph Karl, who received some training in engineering, mechanics, hydraulics, and physics from his father and entered service in the machinery workshop of the mines before he was twenty (though later, in 1737, he did attend Mikoviny’s courses),47 the young Maximilian was sent to study in the Jesuit gymnasium in nearby Banská Bystrica. While there is no direct evidence about the background and circumstances that led to this decision, the sources allow some informed conjectures. In a family such as his, Hell could hardly have avoided exposure to mathematics wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wis- senschaften, 1989). See also Tibenský, “Pokusy o organizovanie vedeckého života,” 22. The operational rules of the society (including a list of the directors of the national chapters) are reproduced from its short-lived journal Bergbaukunde in Tar and Zsámbék, Selmectől Miskolcig, 100–3. 46 Pinzger, Hell Miksa, 1:9. 47 Faller, A magyar bányagépesítés úttörői, 39.