Page - 106 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 2106 the library of the Jesuit college after the suppression of the order; the fate of the room Hell abandoned in the college during the same period; and, finally, the assignment of the room in the observatory that both he and von Tries- necker used to two students of astronomy after von Triesnecker’s death.51 A detailed investigation of the interactions between Hell and the administrative and scientific staff of the university is made difficult by the scarcity of material. The appointment also entailed an annual stipend of three hundred florins, payable from the university’s coffers, an income that secured comfortable cir- cumstances. For the time being, the site of this comfort was to be the upper floors of the new university building, directly underneath the observatory, which the court astronomer shared with his assistant (referred to as the socius, bidellus, or adjunctus), a servant (famulus), and a secretary (scriba). Further- more, his apartment had sufficient space to host a student of astronomy for shorter or longer periods. It was a common arrangement for astronomers in those days to live in the observatory building itself: given the nightly chores that went with the profession, it was simply convenient to do so. While this also meant immediate proximity to the hub of university life—and, given the building’s location, to the heartbeat of Vienna as a two hundred thousand- strong urban center—an atmosphere of seclusion seems to have reigned in these upper quarters. In a letter from 1762, Hell refers to his apartment as “an almost sacred space,” inhabited only by priests.52 His living quarters, at least, were not public. 2 Science in the City and in the World: Hell and the respublica astronomica Perhaps the most conspicuous aspect of the instruction to Hell is the intention of enlisting the imperial and royal astronomer and the observatory under his direction to the service of putting Vienna once and for all on the map of Euro- pean science. The Habsburg capital had been a luminous center of glory and  representation for a long time on many accounts, but despite institutions like the university or the imperial library, the systematic pursuit of scientific 51 uaw, Universitätskonsistorium CA 1.0.195 ; CA 1.3.117; CA 1.3.140; CA 1.3.405; CA 1.4.158. These documents have also been cataloged, with a summary, at http://scopeq.cc.univie. ac.at/Query/volltextsuche.aspx (search on “Maximilian Hell”) (accessed April 15, 2019). 52 Hell to Károly Eszterházy, bishop of Eger, dated Vienna, August 6, 1762. Eger, Főegyház- megyei Levéltár, Archivum vetus (hereafter: fle, AV), 2629.