Page - 258 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

© PER PIPPIN ASPAAS AND LÁSZLÓ KONTLER, ����  |  doi:10.1163/9789004416833_008 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 License. Chapter 6 “Tahiti and Vardø will be the two columns […]”: Observing Venus and Debating the Parallax A precise definition of the Sun’s parallax, that is, a definition beyond any doubt, associated with all certitude or at least the highest degree of prob- ability, would not have been possible if it were not for the Supreme King CHRISTIAN the SEVENTH, who followed the advice of Denmark’s wis- est ministers and entered among the participants in this extremely im- portant enterprise. To the surprise of all other academies, His Highness donated the greatest possible sums for the attainment of this goal and thereby ended up placing what we might call the crown on the head of all the glorious, ruler-sponsored expeditions treated so far. maximilian hell, introduction to “Expeditio litteraria ad Polum arcticum” (un- finished manuscript, c.1773, wus, Manuscripte Hell) ∵ With the third volume of the Expeditio litteraria ad Polum arcticum, both Hell and Sajnovics should be on solid ground. Their professional formation as as- tronomers and “mathematicians” in the eighteenth-century sense of the word could hardly be contested. Nor is it surprising that, despite the book as such never materializing, the “mathematical-astronomical” part resulted in more pages in print than even the Demonstratio and the polemics entailed. In brief, the third volume was to consist of the following works: Volume 3. Mathematicus, & astronomicus Part 1: The latitude and longitude of Vardø, description of the observa- tory and instruments used in Vardø during 1768–69, the refraction of the atmosphere in the Far North, the observation of the transit of Venus it- self, and an accurate determination of the solar parallax; Part 2: Geo- graphical latitudes determined en route between Copenhagen and Vardø; Part 3: Observations pertaining to the declination of the magnetic needle; Part 4: A new method to determine the figure of the earth, by means of barometric observations.