Seite - 109 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

109Enlightened and Jesuit Networks, and a New Node of Science Triesnecker, until 1806. It was not only the second of modern, regularly pub- lished astronomical annuals after the Parisian Connoissance des temps (Knowl- edge of time) of the Bureau des Longitudes (1679),58 and preceding the London Nautical Almanac of the Commissioners of Longitudes (1767) as well as the Berlin Astronomisches Jahrbuch (Astronomical yearbook [1774]). It is also note- worthy in terms of its difference in contents and conception from each of these prestigious counterparts. Like Hell, the Jahrbuch’s editor Johann Elert Bode (1747–1826), besides publishing the astronomical tables for the given year and news and treatises in the field, also aimed at reporting on astronomical obser- vations made at various locations in and outside Germany.59 However, the printing is missing from the title page of every issue until the volume for 1766, published “Viennæ mdcclxv.” Thus, on the title page of the first issue, we find Anni 1757, and this year is taken for granted as the year of printing in some modern studies (e.g., Ferrari d’Occhieppo, “Hell and Fixlmillner,” 28; Harris, “Boscovich, the ‘Boscovich Circle,’” 537n19; Karin Lackner et al., Der historische Buchbestand der Universitätssternwarte Wien: Ein il- lustrierter Katalog, vol. 2, 18. Jahrhundert [Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2006], 17, 23). One excep- tion to the above rule was the volume for 1761, which was delayed due to the move of the printing house. Several items in Hell’s correspondence from January and February 1761 contain apologies for this delay, revealing the exceptionality of the situation (Hell to Lacaille, to Delisle and to Messier in Paris, all dated January 31, 1761; Hell to Rieger in Ma- drid, dated February 6, 1761; Hell to Braun in St. Petersburg and to Chappe d’Auteroche in Tobolsk, both dated February 8, 1761; all in wus, Manuscripte Hell). Two manuscript bib- liographies of Hell’s published works, both written in Hell’s own hand and preserved at the monastery of Pannonhalma in Hungary, explicitly state that the first volume of the Ephemerides was in fact published in 1756 (Hell’s mss “opera à P. Hell. S.J. edita” [dated June 9, 1773] and “Elenchus operum editorum à P. Maximiliano Hell” [1791]). In Hell’s cor- respondence, no letter from the year 1756 is known to have survived. However, a letter from Stepling in Prague to Hell in Vienna, dated January 30, 1757, contains praise for the Ephemerides: “The Ephemerides published by the Reverend Father for the year 1757, which are of really high quality, I have had the great pleasure of seeing and leafing through. I congratulate you, Reverend Father, with this start, so useful for astronomy and truly honourable for Our Society [of Jesus].” All this evidence combined seems to indicate that the Anni 1757 volume was also published ahead of the year it covered. 58 In 1762, the publication was renamed Connoissance des mouvemens célestes, a name it kept for only five years. In 1768, it reverted back to its original name, which it retained until 1797, when the spelling Connoissance des temps was modernized into Connaissance des temps. See further Guy Boistel, “Un ‘bréviaire’ pour les astronomes et les marins: La Connaisance [sic] des temps et les calculateurs de Bureau des longitudes, de Lalande à Loewy (1772–1907),” Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences 64 (2014): 462–80. 59 On Bode in general, see Friedhelm Schwernin, Der Berliner Astronom: Leben und Werk von Johann Elert Bode 1747–1826 (Frankfurt: Harri Deutsch Verlag, 2006); on Bode’s annuals, see Jürgen Hamel, “Ephemeriden und Informationen: Inhaltliche Untersuchung Berliner Ka- lender bis zu Bodes Astronomischen Jahrbuch,” in 300 Jahre Astronomie in Berlin und Pots- dam (Frankfurt: Harri Deutsch Verlag, 2000), 49–68; Cornelia Maria Schörg, “Die Präsenz der Wiener Universitätssternwarte und ihrer Forschungen in den deutschsprachigen