Page - 67 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

67The Making of a Jesuit Astronomer in the Habsburg Provinces the university, these fields were supervised there by two eminent polymaths of the Jesuit college: Erasmus Frölich (Fröhlich [1700–58]), also known for his work in numismatics and antiquarian studies, and Joseph Franz, already men- tioned as the first director of the Oriental Academy but at this time still at the helm of the Viennese Jesuit Observatory, which he and Frölich had construct- ed at one end of the compounds of the college back in 1733–34.86 Franz soon recruited the young Hell to make observations there, apparently around 1743, though evidence for this is scanty. The only concrete reference to this year in this context seems to be in a letter by Hell to the Danish astronomer Thomas Bugge (1740–1815) as late as 1789: “How many strenuous works I have conducted in the service of astronomy for forty-six years of my life, ever since 1743, from which year my first observations are extant, will be talked about by future generations.”87 A manuscript biography, most probably written by Hell’s suc- cessor Franz de Paula Triesnecker (1745–1817) (from 1809, von Triesnecker), gives the years “1744 and 1745,” and 1745 is also mentioned in Schlichtegroll’s Nekrolog of 1793.88 Around the same time, the gifted student used his spare 86 This was the second astronomical observatory in Vienna, following upon the one created with support from Emperor Charles vi by court mathematician Johann Jakob (Giovanni Jacopo) Marinoni (1676–1755) on the top of his own house in 1730 (described by contem- poraries as one of the most beautiful ones in Europe). The Jesuits’ self-standing “tower” was forty-five meters high, rising above the neighboring buildings by around twenty-four meters, according to Pinsker, “Der Astronom,” 102; for further details, see Per Pippin As- paas, Thomas Posch, and Isolde Müller, “Astronomische Observatorien der Jesuiten in der ‘Provincia Austriae’ im 18. Jahrhundert,” Acta historica astronomiae 52 (2014): 89–110. In the literature, the Jesuit observatory is often confused with the Imperial Observatory es- tablished in 1755. Cf. Karl Adolf-Franz Fischer, “Jesuiten-Mathematiker in der Deutschen Assistenz bis 1773,” Archivum historicum Societatis Iesu 47 (1978): 159–224; Agustín Udías, Searching the Heavens and the Earth: The History of Jesuit Observatories (Dordrecht: Klu- wer Academic, 2003), 29; Gudrun Wolfschmidt, “Cultural Heritage and Architecture of Baroque Observatories,” Paper delivered at the European Society for Astronomy in Cul- ture Seventeenth Annual Meeting, seac 2009, 4; http://www.math.uni-hamburg.de/ spag/ign/stw/seac09-obs-barock.pdf (accessed April 12, 2019). 87 Hell in Vienna to Bugge in Copenhagen, Vienna July 24, 1789. Pinzger, Hell Miksa, 2:154. There is no primary evidence provided to support the claim that Hell was actually hired as an assistant of Franz at his observatory in 1745. Cf. Konradin Ferrari d’Occhieppo, “Max- imilian Hell and Placidus Fixlmillner: Die Begründer der neueren Astronomie in Öster- reich,” in Österreichische Naturforscher, Ärzte und Techniker, ed. Fritz Knoll (Vienna: Ver- lag der Gesellschaft für Natur und Technik, 1957), 27–31, here 27. 88 [Franz de Paula von Triesnecker], Lebenslauf von Hell, Österreichische Akademie der Wis- senschaften, Wien, Nachlass Littrow, transcript by Hannelore and Horst Kastner-Masilko; http://kastner-masilko.at/LebenslaufHell.pdf (accessed April 12, 2019); “Maximilian Hell,” in Schlichtegroll, Nekrolog, 284. The Observationes astronomicae in speculo Viennensi 1734– 50 factae attributed to Franz might shed light on Hell’s earlier career as an observer (see Heinrich Kellner, “Franz, Joseph,” in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie 7 [1878]: 318–19), but