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Chapter
8354
After the discontinuation of the congregations of Mary, which had been
introduced by the Society [of Jesus] and which offered schooling in true
Christian virtues and morals, there were no exhortations pro majoribus
until the present year, when such were finally ordered to be held on every
Sunday in the university church, but for no more than half an hour, and
not aimed at the students, since few of them show up anyway. Instead,
they are aimed at women, who occupy the better part of the church, not
without scandal, dressed as they are for the seduction of the youth, at-
tracting the gaze of the youngsters by nodding and gesticulating, etc. The
cause of this evil is the German language […]; in case the sermons had
been in Latin as they ought to […], the female sex, ignorant of the Latin
tongue as she is, would never have entered the university church at all.32
These grumblings of the old man notwithstanding, one cannot help observing
that after the suppression of the Society of Jesus, Hell published in German
quite extensively and regularly. His issuing of German-language almanacs
around 1775 has already been mentioned. In the same period, he also published
numerous articles in German-language newspapers, journals, and books.
When in 1775 a collection of essays by ex-Jesuit professors, entitled Contribu
tions to Various Sciences by a Few Austrian Erudites,33 was issued in Vienna, Hell
apparently welcomed the German rendition of some selected astronomical
works of his. After all, his two pieces in this volume had already been published
in Latin in the appendices of the Ephemerides. Toward the end of his life, at the
very same time that he bewailed the widespread decline of proficiency in Latin
to Eszterházy, he allowed a colleague in Wrocław, Anton L. Jungnitz, to trans-
late nearly all the appendices of his Ephemerides into German and publish
them in quick succession, as Contributions to Practical Astronomy, in the Form
of Various Observations, Treatises, and Methods Taken from the Astronomical
Ephemeris of Mr. Abbé Maximilian Hell.34 Hell also discussed astronomy in or-
dinary newspapers. One increasingly verbose series of articles were published
in the Mannheimer Zeitung (Mannheim newspaper) and the Wienerisches Dia
rium in late 1777. Here, two ex-Jesuit astronomers, Mayer and Hell, engaged in
32 Hell to Eszterházy in Eger, dated Vienna, November 11, 1791, fle, AV 2629.
33 Karl Scherffer et al., Beyträge zu verschiedenen Wissenschaften von einigen Oesterreichi
schen Gelehrten (Vienna: Augustin Bernhardi, 1775).
34 Maximilian Hell, Beyträge zur Praktischen Astronomie, in verschiedenen Beobachtungen,
Abhandlungen, Methoden aus den astronomischen Ephemeriden der Herrn Abbe’ Maximi
lian Hell, trans. and ed. A. [Anton] L. Jungnitz (Breslau: Korn, 1790–93). In 1789, Jungnitz
had already published a German translation of Hell’s proposal of new constellations in
honor of King George iii and William Herschel (Vienna: Trattner, 1789).
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book Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe"
Maximilian Hell (1720–92)
And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe
- Title
- Maximilian Hell (1720–92)
- Subtitle
- And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe
- Authors
- Per Pippin Aspaas
- László Kontler
- Publisher
- Brill
- Location
- Leiden
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-90-04-41683-3
- Size
- 15.5 x 24.1 cm
- Pages
- 492
- Categories
- Naturwissenschaften Physik
Table of contents
- Acknowledgments VII
- List of Illustrations IX
- Bibliographic Abbreviations X
- Introduction 1
- 1 Shafts and Stars, Crafts and Sciences: The Making of a Jesuit Astronomer in the Habsburg Provinces 37
- 2 Metropolitan Lures: Enlightened and Jesuit Networks, and a New Node of Science 91
- 3 A New Node of Science in Action: The 1761 Transit of Venus and Hell’s Transition to Fame 134
- 4 The North Beckons: “A desperate voyage by desperate persons” 172
- 5 He Came, He Saw, He Conquered? The Expeditio litteraria ad Polum Arcticum 209
- 6 “Tahiti and Vardø will be the two columns […]”: Observing Venus andDebating the Parallax 258
- 7 Disruption of Old Structures 305
- 8 Coping with Enlightenments 344
- Appendix 1 Map of the Austrian Province of the Society of Jesus (with Glossary of Geographic Names) 394
- Appendix 2 Instruction for the Imperial and Royal Astronomer Maximilian Hell, S.J 398
- Bibliography 400
- Index 459