Page - 133 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

133Enlightened and Jesuit Networks, and a New Node of Science from whomsoever, if only I had the chance. Meanwhile, I accept my des- tiny, and I resort to the same attitude as my predecessors, none of whom were so attached to the observatory in Graz as to prevent them from ei- ther seeking immediately to be freed from this burden, or at least con- gratulating themselves when they were freed from it. I would have loved to accept the name of a colleague that His Reverence [i.e., Hell] gave me so undeservedly, if my contributions had not rendered me totally unwor- thy of such an honor. Later in the same year, Mayr indeed left Graz to take up the chair of mathemat- ics in Linz, where he taught until 1760, before moving to Klagenfurt in 1760–61 and then Buda in 1761–62. He did not return to teach mathematics at any of the universities proper, and seems not to have pursued astronomy any further. The substance and the tone of his letter to Hell may to a certain extent be ascribed to the resentment and self-victimization of an embittered man, but it sheds light on the supreme need at the time for the kind of systematic and consistent promotion on behalf of astronomy pursued by the imperial and royal astrono- mer through publications, networking, training, and instrumentation. The first spectacular result of this activity was the part played and the attention re- ceived by Hell, his observatory, and its local context during the 1761 Venus tran- sit observations.