Page - 123 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

123Enlightened and Jesuit Networks, and a New Node of Science With a view to the proliferation of the commissions of Father Franz, in 1755– 5688 there was a change at the helm of the Jesuit observatory. The successor, Joseph Liesganig89 (also spelled Liesganigg), a native of Graz, was Hell’s senior by one year and entered the Society of Jesus at the tender age of fifteen. Like Hell, he pursued his university studies in Vienna, although the two men did so in almost exactly alternate years. Between 1742 and 1745, at the time when Hell took his course in philosophy and started as an assistant of Franz’s, Liesganig was already back in Graz as a repetens (gymnasium teacher) of mathematics, and thereafter of rhetoric briefly in Linz. He then returned to Vienna and com- pleted his studies in theology by 1749 (which means that in this period the two future directors had a chance to know each other: Liesganig was in his last year while Hell was in his first90). Liesganig later served as a preacher and the in- spector at a German school in Komárno (Komárom, Komorn) along the Dan- ube in western Hungary, and then passed his third year of probation in Banská Bystrica (probably in 1749–50, that is, two years earlier than Hell). In 1750–51, we already find him serving as a professor of mathematics in Košice, but he was back in the capital again in the following university year (when Hell had just left for his own final probation), now as a professor of mathematics at the university and assistant at the Jesuit observatory. He was thus close at hand when the court astronomer was to be appointed, but Hell—whom his connec- tion with Franz and his overall record91 may have made a stronger candidate, despite his then current position in remote Transylvania—was preferred for that role. Liesganig had to be content with his appointment as prefect of the Jesuit observatory, a position he retained until the Society’s suppression in 1773. As observatory director, Liesganig was above all given prestigious tasks in 88 Surprisingly, it cannot be fully ascertained when exactly the change took place. According to Fischer, “Jesuiten-Mathematiker in der Deutschen Assistenz,” 207, Liesganig was praef[ectus] Spec[ulae] astron[omicae] in Vienna in the entire period from 1752/53 to 1772/73. According to the same source, Franz was praefectus of the observatory from 1738/39 to 1754/55, however. Fischer, “Jesuiten-Mathematiker,” 197. 89 Already mentioned briefly above, Liesganig still awaits an academic study focusing on his life and work. The account in this section is based on Steinmayr, “Geschichte der Univer- sitätssternwarte,” 178–81; Walther Fischer, “Liesganig, Joseph,” in Neue Deutsche Biogra- phie 14 (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1985), 540–42; Fischer, “Jesuiten-Mathematiker in der Deutschen Assistenz,” 207; Peter Brosche, Der Astronom der Herzogin: Leben und Werk von Franz Xaver von Zach (1754–1832) (Frankfurt: Harri Deutsch Verlag, 2009), 20–25. 90 Lukács, Catalogi personarum, 9:43. 91 Liesganig’s only publication to date was the study tool Tabulae memoriales praecipua ar- ithmeticae tum numericae tum literalis, geometriae, etiam curvarum, et trigonometriae, atque utriusque architecturae elementa complexae, in usum auditorum (Vienna: Trattner, 1754).