Page - 190 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 4190 government also informed the Royal Society that they would allow Boscovich to travel through its dominions along with “another member of the Jesuit order.”62 Could this fellow have been Father Hell? Given the circumstance, al- ready reiterated in Chapter 3, that Boscovich and Hell were no close associates, Hell can hardly have ever been a candidate of Boscovich for a companion on his expedition. On the contrary, Liesganig—who along with Scherffer appears to have been Boscovich’s main Viennese contact—was approached by the Dal- matian savant.63 Liesganig eventually failed to obtain permission to partici- pate in the expedition from Chancellor Kaunitz, who moreover was also reluc- tant to grant Boscovich the necessary leave from his position in Pavia.64 Boscovich then turned to the Jesuit Christian Mayer, court astronomer of Mannheim and—like himself—a fellow of the Royal Society of London, asking him to join in the expedition instead of Liesganig.65 However, the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and all its colonies in April 1767 finally brought an end to these plans, and in a letter to Boscovich dated May 12, 1767, the president of the Royal Society effectively withdrew the invitation.66 There appear to have been willingness to undertake the expedition. See Rita Tolomeo, ed., Ruggiero Giuseppe Bosco- vich: Lettere per una storia della scienza (1763–1786), Accademia Nazionale delle Scienze detta dei xl: Scritti e documenti 9, Documenti Boscovichiani 3 (Rome: Accademia Nazio- nale delle Scienze detta dei xl, 1992), 283–86. Only then was the formal decision to invite Boscovich taken by the Royal Society, in a meeting on June 5, 1766. See Woolf, Transits of Venus, 163. Rumor then spread quickly, and the plan for Boscovich’s expedition is men- tioned, for example, in a letter from Lalande to Weiss in Trnava, dated Paris, October 14, 1766. See Vargha, Correspondence de Ferenc Weiss, 61–62. 62 Morton to Boscovich in Pavia, dated London, December 22, 1766, see Tolomeo, Boscovich: Lettere, 298–99. 63 See Tolomeo, Boscovich: Lettere, section entitled “Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich: Carteggio con corrispondenti diversi su un’ipotesi di viaggio in California (1766–1767),” containing twenty-eight letters (without Hell mentioned in any of them), 281–386; cf. 29–35, 355–58. 64 After nearly three months of lobbying, Liesganig in a letter to Boscovich in Pavia, dated Vienna, February 26, 1767, finally found himself forced to say “adieu Amerique!” See Tolo- meo, Boscovich: Lettere, 311–12. 65 Boscovich to Morton in London, undated but probably—to judge from Morton’s answer of May 12, 1767—dated April 22, 1767. Tolomeo, Boscovich: Lettere, 319–20; cf. 321. Mayer mentions plans to accompany Boscovich on this expedition in his long treatise on the Venus transit: “That I, having quitted America, where I was supposed to travel two years ago, financed by the Royal Society of England, arrived in this city [i.e., St. Petersburg] in- stead.” Ad Augustissimam Russiarum omnium Catharinam ii Alexiewnam Imperatricem expositio de transitu Veneris, 84. 66 Morton to Boscovich in Pavia, dated London, May 12, 1767. See Tolomeo, Boscovich: Lettere, 320–21.