Page - 75 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

75The Making of a Jesuit Astronomer in the Habsburg Provinces he himself ever claimed was an advisory role.114 The real initiator and founder was Kéri Borgia, according to the assessment of contemporaries: “Only Hun- gary had never seen anything like this until the year 1755, when Franciscus Kéri Borgia, worthy of memorialization by posterity, constructed for Urania a home in Trnava, and a perfect one in every aspect,” wrote János Sajnovics, who served as an assistant astronomer in Trnava in 1766–68 and again in 1770–73 (preced- ed and interrupted by periods of performing the same function on the side of Hell, first in Vienna, and then on the Arctic expedition).115 While Kéri Borgia was also appointed as associate prefect (socius praefectus) of the new observatory, its direction, including its equipment, was entrusted to Xaver Franz Weiss (1717–85).116 Born in Trnava, Weiss joined the Society of Je- sus in 1733 and studied at the universities of his native town (philosophy) as well as Graz (theology). Between the two, from 1741 to 1745, he switched from one gymnasium in northern Hungary to the other each year teaching “humani- ties” (humaniora). It was during the years in Graz—at a Jesuit university with an observatory since exactly 1745—that he may have developed an interest and expertise in astronomy, to which his correspondence in 1750 (while on his third probation in Judenburg) with Scherffer (at that time, the director of the Graz observatory) testifies.117 One of these letters also demonstrates that Weiss con- templated an expedition to Brazil during this time. From Scherffer’s advice on how to proceed, it emerges that this was meant to be an expedition in the style of the geodetic surveys by Maupertuis in the Torne River Valley and La Conda- mine in the territory of Quito in the 1730s.118 Nothing came of the plans for a 114 Cf. the letter to Bugge, already mentioned, in Pinzger, Hell Miksa, 2:154. 115 Joannes Sajnovics, Idea astronomiae, honoribus regiae universitatis Budensis dicata (Buda: Landerer, 1778), 6. Given the roles Sajnovics played in Hell’s projects as imperial and royal astronomer, he will be introduced in more detail later. 116 For a biographical sketch, see http://jezsuita.hu/nevtar/weiss-ferenc/ (accessed April 12, 2019). 117 Scherffer to Weiss, Graz, August 29, 1750, in Correspondence de Ferenc Weiss, 1:13. “I wished to describe this to His Reverence [i.e., Weiss] before he leaves Judenburg: If something similar (which I doubt not, as long as the skies were clear) was seen there, please describe it.” The preceding part of the letter describes an aurora borealis seen in Graz on August 26. 118 Scherffer to Weiss, Graz, August 2, 1750, Correspondence de Ferenc Weiss, 10–11. In 1750, King João V of Portugal (1689–1750, r.1706–50), in the aftermath of a treaty signed with Spain concerning their Latin American territories, had asked the general of the Jesuit or- der for ten Jesuits to be sent to map his dominions in Brazil. (Szentmártonyi, mentioned in n. 82 above, eventually became one of these.) Boscovich—soon to acquire fame for his survey of the papal lands, which included a measurement of the meridian between Rome and Rimini in collaboration with the English Jesuit Christophe Maire (1697–1767) also hoped initially to go to Brazil for the same purpose. See Elizabeth Hill, “Roger Boscovich: A Biographical Essay,” in Roger Joseph Boscovich S.J., f.r.s., 1711–1787: Studies of His Life and