Seite - 59 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

59The Making of a Jesuit Astronomer in the Habsburg Provinces character from affairs of similar kinds between parties belonging to the same denomination.62 Vienna, where Hell interrupted his Upper Hungarian trajectory for three years of studies in philosophy (logics, physics, and metaphysics) and two in mathematics at the university during the early 1740s, and where he returned to complete the curriculum in theology at the end of the decade, had an alto- gether different ambience. Academic life in Vienna had by then been steeped in Jesuit erudition for nearly two centuries.63 At first, Vienna seemed a fertile soil for the Reformation, and the early measures to counter its spread included some reforms at the University of Vienna in the 1530s, as well as the invitation of the Society of Jesus to the city by Ferdinand I, king of Hungary and Bohemia, who ruled the Habsburg hereditary provinces on behalf of Emperor Charles V (1500–58, r.1519–56) in 1550–51. A Jesuit college was opened in Vienna at the same time, under the leadership of Claude Le Jay (Claudius Jajus [1504–52]), Ignatius of Loyola’s close associate, who immediately conceived a plan of bringing all faculties of the university except law and medicine under the col- lege as a fully public institution, getting rid of “heretical” professors. As soon found out by Le Jay and the renowned Dutch Jesuit theologian Peter Canisius (Petrus Canisius [1521–97]), who was also brought to Vienna in 1553 to lead the work of the Reformkommission of the university, this was not practi- cable because of a shortage of competent “non-heretic” professors. The Nova reformatio of 1554, a new constitution of the university that remained in effect until the Theresan and Josephian reforms beginning in the 1750s, reduced the corporative character of the university and increased the possibilities for interference by the territorial sovereign (Landesherr), who, however, also 62 This is revealed by a survey of the following stock of documents. Štátny archív v Banskej Bystrici, Banská Štiavnica. Protocollum Liberae Regiae Civitatis Montanae Schemnitzien- sis de Annis 1725–1735; Spišský archív v Levoči. xxi. 40–42. Protocollum Regiae ac Liberae Civitatis Leuchoviensis pro Anni 1740–1750; Štátny archív v Trenčíne, KN/I 58–65, Proto- collum Liberae ac Regiae Civitatis Trenchiniensis, Actorum Politicorum 1738–1743; mgtn Contractus 1560–1755; mol E 152 Acta Jesuitica ii.a. Coll. Leucsov., passim. 63 The following survey is based on Rochus Perkmann, Die Jesuiten und die Universität Wien (Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1866); J. Wrba, “Der Orden der Gesellschaft Jesu im Alten Univer- sitätsviertel von Wien: Hundertfünfzig Jahre von den Jesuiten geprägte Universität,” in Das alte Universitätsviertel in Wien, 1385–1985, ed. Günther Hamann, Kurt Mühlberger, and Franz Skacel (Vienna: Universitätsverlag für Wissenschaft und Forschung, 1985), 2:47–74; Kurt Mühlberger, “Universität und Jesuitenkolleg in Wien: Von der Berufung des Ordens bis zum Bau des Akademischen Kollegs,” in Die Jesuiten in Wien: Zur Kunst- und Kulturge- schichte der österreichischen Ordensprovinz der “Gesellschaft Jesu” im 17. und 18. Jahrhun- dert, ed. Herbert Karner and Werner Telesko (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wis- senschaften, 2003), 21–37.