Page - 94 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 294 the rest of his life at the monastery led by his uncle Alexander in 1745. He suc- ceeded Dobler as director of the observatory in 1762, and although he produced a number of works in theology, law, and music, it was as an astronomer that Fixlmillner acquired his reputation—all the more impressive as he appears to have been largely self-taught in practical astronomy. Hell visited the Krems- münster Abbey in September 1770, and by 1771 at the latest, Hell and Fixlmill- ner had initiated a scientific correspondence that was to last throughout their careers, and their collaboration also entailed Fixlmillner’s publication of his astronomical observations in Hell’s Ephemerides.12 However, in 1755 clearly none of these figures were a match to Hell in terms of experience and expertise in the fields indispensable for filling the new position at the University of Vien- na.13 Besides good contacts close to the fire, the principles of enlightened meri- tocracy also favored the emerging Jesuit. The new court astronomer was called back to his home university in Sep- tember 175514 and began his new role on November 1. A description of the position—“instruction,” in German, with Latin phrases interspersed—is at- tached to the letter of appointment, issued by the chamber of Lower Austria on October 30, 1755.15 This is a very valuable document: it prescribes in great detail diverse activities, and thus expresses with exactitude the expectations harbored by his administrative and academic superiors who designed the posi- tion in the whirlwind of university reform. 12 Information on Fixlmillner’s career has been gleaned from Wurzbach, Biographisches Lexikon (1858) 4:261–62 and Rabenalt, “Astronomische Forschung.” See also the useful overview of Fixlmillner’s life and writings in Scriptores ordinis S. Benedicti qui 1750–1800 fuerunt in Imperio Austriaco-Hungarico (Vienna: Leon, 1881), 95–98. 13 It is worth mentioning that in other important instances the Viennese decision-makers did not shy away from filling a newly created, key university chair with a scholar who, to all intents and purposes, trained himself in the given field “on the job.” A case in point is Joseph von Sonnenfels (1732–1817)—very much a generalist philosophe on the Viennese literary scene, best known for his advocacy of the cultivation of the German vernacular, before his appointment as professor of Polizeywissenschaft at the university in 1763. 14 “In September of the year 1755, I was called, totally unexpected and urgently, from Cluj to the chair that I now keep here in Vienna,” Hell recalled a few years later. Hell, Anleitung zum nützlichen Gebrauch der künstlichen Stahl-Magneten, 13. In his first letter to Delisle in Paris, dated Vienna, February 2, 1758 (Archives nationales, Paris, mar/2JJ/66), Hell gives the exact date as September 14, 1755. 15 Ernennung Maximilian Hells zum k.k. Astronomen. Beilage: Instruction. Für dem Kaiser. Königl. Astronomen Maximilianum Hell S.J. Universitätsarchiv Wien (hereafter: uaw), Universitätskonsistorium, CA 1.2.102. See the English translation of the full text below in appendix 1. Cf. Pinzger, Hell emlékezete, 16–17 (in Hungarian translation). In the letter to Delisle mentioned above (n. 14), Hell gave a succinct summary (confined to five items out of the original seven).