Page - 336 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 7336 his institution a more “modern” profile. One of the plans he nurtured was re- making the monastery’s powder tower into an astronomical observatory. The abbot was encouraged in this project by, among others, the Jesuit astronomers Paolo Frisi (1728–84) from Milan and Liesganig from Vienna, who both paid visits to Melk in order to offer support and advice. In the end, however, this project was also dropped because of internal strife within the monastery. Somewhat later, a modest Benedictine observatory was in fact founded at the monastery in Lambach. In a letter to Bernoulli in Berlin from the summer of 1777, Fixlmillner explained that an observatory was being established at this place, and that a monk by the name of Julian Ricci (1745–1812) had been sent from the abbey to Vienna to receive instructions.72 Ricci stayed at Hell’s place in Vienna for several months, until he traveled back to Lambach in the autumn of 1777 along with the imperial astronomer, who was to assist in the practical arrangements for this observatory.73 Whatever its position internally in the Benedictine system, the observatory in Lambach never gained anything near the prominence of its Kremsmünster counterpart. In the latter place, Fixlmill- ner continued his observations as before, unaffected by the Theresan and Jo- sephian monastic reforms. His observatory became a “node” of European as- tronomy in its own right, but Fixlmillner seems not to have promoted his colleague in Lambach or his observations to any significant extent. No further attempts to establish astronomical observatories either by reli- gious orders or private individuals seem to have been made in the geographical area of the former Austrian province of the Society of Jesus during, or in the aftermath, of the suppression. The plight of the Jesuit observatories that were in operation as the suppression arrived remains to be described. The Jesuit observatory of Vienna has already been mentioned, and the less-than-glorious early history of its younger sister observatory in Graz has also been summarized Sternwarte zu errichten, nicht zur Ausführung kam,” in “[…] und das Firmament kündet vom Werk Seiner Hände” (Ps. 19:2): Faszination Astronomie; Eine Spurensuche in der Melker Stiftsbibliothek, ed. Gottfried Glaβner, Thesaurus Mellicensis 1 (Melk: Stift Melk, 2009), 123–31. 72 Fixmillner to Bernoulli in Berlin, dated Kremsmünster, June 23, 1777 (printed in Bode’s Astronomisches Jahrbuch and quoted in the JS [December 1778]: 801–15, here 814). “Il dit, à la fin de sa Lettre, qu’on va établir à l’Abbaye de Lambach, près de Cremsmunster, un Observatoire; & qu’un Religieux de cette Abbaye est à Vienne pour prendre les instruc- tions nécessaires.” For Ricci, see Rabenalt, “Astronomische Forschung,” 129n2. 73 In a letter to Bishop Eszterházy in Eger, dated Vienna, September 8, 1777 (fle AV 2629), Hell wrote: “Tomorrow, that is, the 9th of September, I will go to Upper Austria along with another astronomer of the Benedictine Monastery of Lambach. I have trained him in as- tronomy for four months, and upon invitation from the Most Honourable Abbot I will go there to arrange a new observatory that has been constructed at that place.”