Page - 76 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 176 Brazilian expedition, however, and in the university year 1752–53, when Hell was present as a consultant for the planning of the observatory, Weiss was ap- pointed professor of mathematics in Trnava. While there, he also wrote the first unequivocally Newtonian textbook in astronomy in Hungary, Astronomiae physicae juxta Newtoni principia breviarium (A short introduction to physical astronomy according to the Principia of Newton [1759]). An astronomical al- manac, reporting on observations in Trnava (Observationes astronomicae […] in observatorio Collegii Academici Societatis Jesu Tyrnaviae in Hungaria habitae [Astronomical observations made in the observatory of the Jesuit collegium of the academy of the Society of Jesus in Trnava in Hungary (1759–72); covering the years 1756–71]), was also launched by Weiss, whose correspondence reveals him to have been widely connected and recognized among fellow astronomers and mathematicians all over Europe. He maintained a lifelong professional re- lationship with Hell—mostly also via correspondence, as by the time the foun- dation stone of the Trnava observatory was ceremoniously laid on January 2, 1753, Hell was already established in his next position as professor of mathe- matics, also commissioned with the creation of an observatory, at the Jesuit academy in Cluj. 4 Professor on the Frontier With the transfer to Cluj, Hell moved to a Habsburg province that was alto- gether a far cry from those known to him from the times of his upbringing and  studies. Like Upper Hungary, Transylvania was multi-ethnic and multi- confessional, but the parallels ceased there. Already in the Middle Ages, the region was under separate governance with its own governor (vajda or voivode) and provincial assembly. From the rise of the Principality of Transylvania after the Battle of Mohács in 1526, this became an independent diet, in which the three privileged groups: Hungarian nobles, Szekel freemen, and “Saxon” bur- ghers were represented. The Szekels (székelyek, siculi), concentrated in the easternmost areas of Transylvania, were Hungarian-speakers who preserved a separate identity on account of the tasks they performed in warfare, especially as border guards, and the consequent peculiarities of social organization and hierarchy; while Saxons were predominantly town-dwellers, migrating to the Kingdom of Hungary as hospites from various parts of Germany in several waves since the twelfth century. The most (and increasingly) numerous among the several other ethnic groups living in Transylvania were the Romanians, Work on the 250th Anniversary of His Birth, ed. Lancelot Law Whyte (London: Allen & Un- win, 1961), 16–101, here 25–27.