Page - 132 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 2132 in Graz. Given that this was just about the time when Hell began his own ap- prenticeship with Father Franz, the complaint is a strange one, but it also sheds light on the scarcity of available expertise on which the quickly developed as- tronomical infrastructure of the Austrian province in the 1740s and 1750s had to rely: Mayr’s lack of training could not have been a secret, but he still got the job. (As we have seen, Fixlmillner on the Benedictine side could be a parallel case—with the difference that Mayr abandoned the field just a few years later.) The gap between the task and his skills seems to have caused him considerable frustration, for he continued: If only I had been given access to the observatory, either when I followed lectures in theology here in Graz, or when I taught poetry and rhetoric in Vienna! Liesganig, whom I asked quite often [for permission to visit the observatory], always found various pretexts to elude my effort, and in this he followed the example of his patron [presumably, Franz]. Mayr further explained that he wanted to send Hell some occultations, but he had been hesitant because of the unreliability of his observatory’s equip- ment—for which, naturally, his predecessor was to blame: The observatory is laboring under its own weight, it was constructed to display the looks of an astronomical tower only (in this and the last year it was saved from total ruin to great expense for the collegium), and its instruments were constructed according to the ideas of the instrument- makers without ever being subjected to professional scrutiny.119 […] The very builder of this device, Halloy,120 who at least on his own accord should have been interested to help, I have asked humbly for assistance many times, but each time he ran off and even caused serious trouble. Eventually, Mayr still decided to send two observations, however deficient they might be, and avowed to being anxious to finally master the field while feeling compelled to abandon it: I do not hate mathematics, as I am fully aware that this discipline ranks highest among the sciences. Astronomy ought to have been a pleasure to me, but I would have liked to have such helpers that were willing to serve the public good by sharing their advice. Indeed, I would be happy to learn 119 Cf. the sceptical assessments of the performance of the observatory above, 68. 120 Peter Halloy (1707–89), director of the Graz observatory in 1753–55.