Page - 188 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 4188 for a previous letter “especially because You, by means of that letter, have wished to initiate a truly erudite scientific correspondence from Your part.”52 It emerges that Bugge had sent Hell his observation of a lunar eclipse on Febru- ary 24, 1766 in Copenhagen, and Hell now urged him to observe the moons of Jupiter as well, and to communicate these as well as other observations to him in the future: “Trust me, nothing more agreeable happens to me, than when I, through scientific correspondence [per commercium litterarium] obtain works by means of which I am able to make my Ephemerides precious and useful to others.”53 The flattery evidently worked, as correspondence between Hell and Bugge continued over the years to come.54 While still very young, in the 1760s Bugge was emerging on the Copenhagen academic scene as a figure of some weight. As early as 1759, at the age of nineteen, he was involved in the official survey of Denmark; in February 1761, he presented the results of his work to the Danish Royal Society, which then hired him for future surveying; and later in the same year he became entrusted with the task of observing the transit of Venus from Trondheim.55 In 1777, after the death of Christian Horrebow and the subse- quent removal of the professor designatus (designatus implied being formally appointed but not yet in office), Peder Horrebow the Younger (1728–1812), Bug- ge was to emerge as astronomer royal of Denmark. He was clearly a man with influential supporters, including, as we have seen, the prominent member of Copenhagen’s Royal Society Kratzenstein, and quite probably also the society’s president, Otto Thott (1703–85). In a report dated January 8, 1768 and preserved among Thott’s papers, Bugge refers to Hell as “the most learned and diligent astronomer of our age.”56 Thott who was also the highest secretary of Det 52 Pinzger, Hell Miksa, 1:3. 53 Pinzger, Hell Miksa, 1:4–5. 54 Not all letters are extant. Among those that have been available for the present study are Hell to Bugge in Copenhagen, dated Vienna, April 14, 1768, July 12, 1777, and March 5, 1788; and Bugge in Copenhagen to Hell in Vienna, dated January 1784, April 18, and August 4, 1788 For a full list of letters, see https://doi.org/10.18710/CVW8YU. 55 Asgeir Lomholt, Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab 1742–1942: Samlinger til Sel- skabets Historie (Copenhagen: Munksgaard), 1 (1942): 511, 530; 4 (1961): 15–32; Thykier, Gyldenkerne, and Darnell, Dansk Astronomi, 2:254–57; Helge Kragh, Dansk Naturviden- skabs Historie, vol. 2 (with contributions from Frank Allan Rasmussen, Anja Skaar Ander- sen, Henrik Kragh Sørensen, and Michael Sterll), Natur, Nytte og Ånd 1730–1850 (Århus: Aarhus Universitetsforlag, 2005), 93–100. 56 Thomas Bugge, “Observatio eclipseos lunaris, quæ anno 1768 tempore astronomico die 3 Januarii, tempore autem civili die 4 Januarii contigit, factæ Havniæ,” manuscript signed “Havniæ d: 8 Januarii 1768” (KB Copenhagen, MS Thott 822. 4o): “I used the same method to observe the lunar eclipse of February 24, 1766, which I shared with the most enlight- ened and diligent astronomer of our age, Father Maximilianus Hell of Vienna. This highly