Page - 340 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 7340 astronomers of the university.” The former, born in Rijeka (Flumen, Fiume, Vi- topolis, Szentvit, Sankt Veit am Pfaum) in present-day Croatia, entered the So- ciety of Jesus in 1753.87 Of noble birth, he was educated at the Theresianum in Vienna, presumably with Scherffer as his foremost teacher in astronomical subjects. He is probably identical with a certain M. Rain S.J. repetens matheseos (M[agister?] Rain of the Society of Jesus, teacher of mathematics) that ob- served the Venus transit from the Imperial Observatory in 1761.88 The same Rain is also said to have served, this time as “second assistant,” at Hell’s obser- vatory in the year 1770, during Hell’s absence in Denmark–Norway.89 In the university years 1771–73, however, Rain held the chair as professor of mathe- matics at the college in Linz, while a letter from Hell to Bernoulli reveals that by 1776 Rain had already departed for a post as a professor of mathematics in Lviv.90 Rain here served as an assistant of Liesganig in his survey of Galicia, where he may also have ended his days.91 In any case, his post-suppression col- laboration with Hell and the Ephemerides was limited to the Anni 1776 volume. The other character mentioned in the same quality in the same volume, Franz Güsman (or Güssmann, Gueßmann, Guessmann) was born in Wolkersdorf (just north of Vienna), and entered the Society of Jesus in 1757. He was prepar- ing for departure for the Jesuit missions in China just as the suppression ar- rived in 1773.92 His participation in the calculations of the Ephemerides appears to have been limited to the year in question. By November 1776, Güsman had left Vienna and arrived—along with Rain—in Lviv to take up a chair in phys- ics.93 Also like Rain, he took part in Liesganig’s survey of Galicia from the late 1770s onward. In 1787, he returned to Vienna, allegedly because of health prob- lems, and was appointed professor of experimental physics at the Theresianum.94 87 Dates according to Steinmayr, “Geschichte der Universitätssternwarte,” 199–200. The year of 1757 as Rain’s year of birth as given in Fischer, “Jesuiten-Mathematiker in der Deutschen Assistenz” must be a misprint, for he is also said there to have entered the Society in 1753. 88 Hell, “Observatio transitus Veneris […] 1761,” 17. In a letter to Taufferer in Ljubljana, dated Vienna, April 6, 1761, Hell speaks of a bidellus (assistant, servant) by the name of Rain. One of Hell’s biographers also states (sadly, without source reference) that Hell received as- sistance from “Ignác Rain” in 1760–61. Ferencová, Maximilán Hell, 29. 89 Steinmayr, “Geschichte der Universitätssternwarte,” 200, likewise without source citation. 90 Hell to Bernoulli in Berlin, dated Vienna, November 30, 1776 (ubb). 91 Information on Rain, unless otherwise noted, has been culled from Fischer, “Jesuiten- Mathematiker in der Deutschen Assistenz.” 92 Steinmayr, “Geschichte der Universitätssternwarte,” 181. 93 Hell to Bernoulli, dated November 30, 1776 (ubb). The content of this letter is reiterated (in French) in the second cahier of Bernoulli’s Nouvelles littéraires (1777): 8–9. 94 Haberzettl, Stellung der Exjesuiten, 168. See also Brosche, Der Astronom der Herzogin, 22–23.