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113Enlightened
and Jesuit Networks, and a New Node of Science
observers and the instruments used by them, and finally a collation of the data.
Other astronomical observations are then reported at some length, besides
places already familiar from above, also from Prague and Polling (Bavaria).
The 1763 volume neglected observations, but in 1764 the picture about
the Transit enterprise was rounded off by reports on the expeditions to the
Isle of Rodrigues, Tranquebar (Tharangambadi), the Cape of Good Hope, and
Tobolsk—Hell not failing to note, “benevolently communicated to me by that
author [i.e., the Abbé Chappe d’Auteroche].”64 Hell also published, with his
own explanations, the Swedish astronomer Anders Planman’s (Andreas Plan-
mann [1724–1803]) tables of the calculations of the solar parallax by various
scholars on the basis of the 1761 observations. In subsequent years, additional
information source locations appeared in the appendix of the Ephemerides on
astronomical observations: Uppsala, Lund, Pont-à-Mousson, Naples, Milan,
Nancy, Toulon, Auxerre, Brest, Hamburg, Lviv (Lvov, Lwów, Leopolis, Lemberg)
(1765); Greifswald, Finnmarchia, Blekinge, Berlin, Leipzig, Sagan, Altona, Wer-
nigerode, Wrocław (Vratislavia, Breslau), Elblag (Elbing), Frankfurt am Oder
(1766); Kremsmünster, Graz (1767); Copenhagen, Warsaw, Vilnius (1768). In
1768, Hell also published a separate set of observations from China, based on a
manuscript of observations compiled by the Jesuit astronomer Augustin von
Hallerstein (1703–74). In ten years from the launching of the Ephemerides, its
coverage of astronomical observation activity reached continental dimen-
sions, with a remarkable density especially in regard of the German-speaking
territories. Finally, besides issuing tables of the Sun, the moon, and the planets
of the solar system and widely collected observation results, supplements to
the Ephemerides for the years 1763 and 1764 also contained new editions of the
solar tables of Lacaille, the lunar tables of Tobias Mayer (1723–62), and the
planetary tables of Cassini de Thury. These were precious items for any skilled
astronomer.
The way in which the information was collected is an interesting and impor-
tant question, but it is difficult to provide a conclusive answer. As a broad gen-
eralization, one may safely point to the operation of the “Jesuit network”: out
of the fifty-three locations from which data were collected and published in
the Ephemerides between 1758 and 1768, twenty were homes to Jesuit colleges
with observatories,65 and the sources of the information from more exotic
64 Hell, Ephemerides 1764 (1763), 221.
65 Paris, Pont-à-Mousson, Rome, Bologna, Florence, Lyon, Milan, Naples, Madrid, Ingolstadt,
Schwetzingen, Würzburg, Trnava, Graz, Vienna, Prague, Wrocław, Poznan, Lviv, Vilnius. To
this number one may add places with Jesuit colleges that had no observatories but sup-
plied Hell with data (such as Dillingen and Ljubljana), and two observatories maintained
by other prestigious Catholic orders (Benedictines at Kremsmünster and Augustinians at
Maximilian Hell (1720–92)
And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe
- Titel
- Maximilian Hell (1720–92)
- Untertitel
- And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe
- Autoren
- Per Pippin Aspaas
- László Kontler
- Verlag
- Brill
- Ort
- Leiden
- Datum
- 2020
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-90-04-41683-3
- Abmessungen
- 15.5 x 24.1 cm
- Seiten
- 492
- Kategorien
- Naturwissenschaften Physik
Inhaltsverzeichnis
- 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