Seite - 100 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

Chapter 2100 Antonio Muratori (1672–1750) and his followers like the Roveretan Girolamo Tartarotti (1706–61).33 In turn, the latter’s local friend Giuseppe Valeriano Van- neti (1719–64) was the translator of the 1756 Italian edition of Van Swieten’s treatise on vampirism.34 In the conceptual framing of this work, the chief strat- egist of Viennese academic reform employed an example to underline the reconcilability of religious belief with the enlightened pursuit of knowledge and social betterment that was derived from the discipline of the newly ap- pointed court astronomer and resonated well with the exhortation in the in- struction issued to the latter around the same time to turn the achievements of that discipline to the defeat of “superstition.” Hell’s appointment and the job description accommodated smoothly in the program of enlightened reform as pursued in Vienna in the mid-1750s, and that program was congenial to his profile as a Jesuit man of science. Virtually the only trace we have of Hell’s activities in his capacity as supervi- sor of calendars is a work of 1760. While the Ephemerides was published in the large quarto format and in stately Latin, which was also the language of most of his learned correspondence and publications, this booklet came out in German—obviously reflecting on the fact that lesser format calendars flouris- hed and sold by the tens of thousands each year in the vernaculars.35 As the title page reveals, Hell—speaking from the position of both a “priest of the Aus- trian province of the Society of Jesus” and “astronomer of the Imperial and Royal Majesties”—offers in the book “A Brief Introduction to the Paschal Cel- ebration for the Common Lay Person, Including a Thorough Refutation of a Work that Christoph Sigismund Schumacher, Calendar Author in Dresden has Published in the Year 1760.”36 Not much is known about Schumacher (1704–68), 33 Klaniczay, “Decline of Witches and Rise of Vampires,” 171. 34 Franco Venturi, Settecento riformatore: Da Muratori a Beccaria (Turin: Einaudi, 1969), 379–82. 35 See István György Tóth, “Les analphabets et les almanachs en Hongrie au xviiie siècle,” in Les lectures du peuple en Europe et dans les Amériques du xviie au xxe siècle, ed. Hans- Jürgen Lüsebrink et al. (Brussels: Editions Complexe, 2003), 127–32. A survey of the vari- ous vernacular almanacs published in the Habsburg lands during the eighteenth century would be very welcome (the lack of a separate section on almanacs in György Kókay, Ge- schichte des Buchhandels in Ungarn [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1990] is regrettable). On French-language almanacs issued in Habsburg lands during the eighteenth century, see Hans-Jürgen Lüsebrink and York-Gothart Mix, eds., Französische Almanachkultur im deutschen Sprachraum (1700–1815) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013). 36 Maximiliani Hell S.J. der Oesterreichischen Provinz Priestern Ihro beyder Kaiserl. Königl. Majest. Astronomi bey der uralten hohen Wienerischen Universität Kurzer Unterricht der Oster-Feyer für den gemeinen Mann samt der gründlichen Wiederlegung einer Schrift, welche Herr Christoph Sigismund Schumacher, Calender-Schreiber in Dreßden unter der