Seite - 161 - in Maximilian Hell (1720–92) - And the Ends of Jesuit Science in Enlightenment Europe

161The 1761 Transit of Venus and Hell’s Transition to Fame order to adjust the nodes of its orbit.”73 This was commented upon in Hell’s report on the 1761 transit, both by Hell himself and by several other observers. Another feature of most reports on the 1761 transit was the measurement of the size of Venus as seen on the Sun’s disc, which had been a matter of dispute since the 1639 observations. Several observers also noticed a luminous ring around Venus at certain stages of the transit, which—sometimes in conjunc- tion with the black-drop effect—inspired them to engage in speculations con- cerning a possible atmosphere surrounding Venus. One of those to do so was the Russian polymath natural philosopher, historian, and poet Mikhail Vasil’evich Lomonosov (1711–65), who observed the transit of Venus from his private home in St. Petersburg in 1761. However, his report was only printed in limited numbers as a booklet in Russian and German. It was never included in the official periodical of the St. Petersburg Academy and was poorly distribut- ed, if at all, outside Russia. Hence, it seems to have been largely ignored until the late nineteenth century, when it was republished in conjunction with the Venus transit of 1874.74 This late nineteenth-century publication has led Rus- sian historians to hail Lomonosov as the discoverer of the atmosphere of Ve- nus.75 However, reflections on a possible atmosphere of Venus can be found in numerous reports from several countries, all published in the immediate after- math of the transit and—unlike Lomonosov’s booklet—distributed far and wide in the Republic of Letters.76 Indeed, the possibility of an atmosphere sur- rounding Venus was mentioned in several of the observations compiled by Hell, who allowed the observers to speak for themselves on this issue, although he concluded early on in his 1761 report that the planet was not at all likely to have an atmosphere.77 73 Eustachio Zanotti, De Veneris ac Solis congressu, 1. 74 T.P. Kravets and V.L. Chenakal, eds., M.V. Lomonosov: polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 4, Trudy po fizike, astronomii I priborostroeniiu, 1744–1765 gg, general editor S.I. Vavilov (Mos- cow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk, 1955), 353–76; 767–74. See also Vladimir Shiltsev, “ Lomonosov’s Discovery of Venus Atmosphere in 1761: English Translation of Original Publication with Commentaries,” https://arxiv.org/abs/1206.3489 (accessed April 15, 2018). 75 In the more recent literature, this claim is sometimes taken as indisputable; cf., e.g., Maor, Venus in Transit, 88–91; Mikhail Ya. Marov, “Mikhail Lomonosov and the Discovery of the Atmosphere of Venus during the 1761 Transit,” in Kurtz, Proceedings, 209–19; Hans Ullma- ier, Puncta, particulae et phaenomena, 146. For a vindication of Lomonosov, see Vladimir Shiltsev, “The 1761 Discovery of Venus’ Atmosphere: Lomonosov and Others,” Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage 17, no. 1 (2014): 85–112. 76 For a list of examples, see Aspaas, “Maximilianus Hell,” 202n44. 77 Hell, “Observatio transitus […] 1761,” esp. 21, 26, 92–94.