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the fruits [quonam autem fructu]? This whoever wishes to know, may un-
derstand from reading the famous periodicals of France, the Journal des
Sçavans, Journal étranger, or Ephem. Astronomicae Parisinae [i.e., the
Connoissance des temps], as well as of Germany, the Göttingische Anzei-
gen, and other astronomical books.97
Hell’s satisfaction was not unfounded. From 1758, the Journal des Sçavans re-
ported on the appearance and the contents of the Ephemerides each year,98 at
varying length, but usually in substantial detail. As hinted above, the awaken-
ing of French interest in the Ephemerides may be ascribed to the operation of
the “Jesuit network,” with two of Hell’s German Jesuit contacts, Mayer and Hu-
berti, bringing the first volume to the attention of Parisian astronomers on the
occasion of a visit in 1757 at the observatories of the French capital.99 In any
case, given that the number of astronomical works reported and reviewed in
this most widely circulated French review journal was a maximum of about
half a dozen every year, the coverage it secured for the Ephemerides is quite
noteworthy. From the point of view of publicity, polemical engagement with
Hell’s positions in the Journal des Sçavans, as in the case of Trébuchet, was also
far from being obviously of adverse effect:100 being regularly reported in the
Journal des Sçavans, engaging responses from reputed figures of the French
academic public, the Ephemerides and Hell earned as much notice among that
public as was possible. A private, but very important response by Lalande—by
this time, the most renowned French astronomer of his age, himself a highly
prolific science writer and editor of the Connoissance, the French counterpart
of the Ephemerides—in a letter to Weiss couched the French astronomer’s ad-
miration for Hell in a comparison of his own significant textbook, the Astrono-
mie (1764), with the famous Almagestum novum (New almagest [1651]) of
Giovanni Battista Riccioli (1598–1671):
97 Hell, Ephemerides 1776 (1775), 2 (Monitum). To the titles mentioned, Hell could have add-
ed the Leipzig-based Nova acta eruditorum as well, which also published reviews of the
Ephemerides from 1762 on.
98 See, e.g., the review of the Ephemerides for the year 1761 in the JS (October 1761): 672–75.
This volume was sent by Hell to the editors of the journal with an explicit request for a
review (letter from Hell to the editors of the journal, dated March 18, 1761; wus). Shortly
afterward, a review of the Ephemerides for 1762 appeared in the Nova acta eruditorum
(February 1762): 49–58.
99 Huberti to Hell, October 3, 1757. wus, Manuscripte Hell, vol. 3.
100 Another case was, more significantly, the critical letters of Lalande himself in February
1773 concerning the parallax calculations of both Hell and Lexell from the 1769 Venus
transit, to be discussed below. JS (February 1773): 90–93, 113–15.
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