Maximilianus Hell (1720-1792) - Munin

historiography of eighteenth-century science, despite the importance of the Latin language to
international communication in the midst of the Age of Reason, Latin sources are often
neglected. By taking into account the Latin writings not only of Father Hell, but also of other
savants of international reputation such as Pehr Wargentin, Anders Johan Lexell, Roger
Boscovich, Christianus Mayer, Nevil Maskelyne and Jérôme de Lalande, this thesis will
hopefully constitute a small step towards a more complete picture of international astronomy
in the latter half of the eighteenth century. In brief, I hope to demonstrate that the study of
cutting-edge astronomy high on the international agenda, as manifested in the Venus transit
projects of 1761 and 1769, should not be reduced to the English and French writings that
emanated from the astronomical centres of London and Paris.
While this thesis does not adhere to a microstoria approach, neither is it universal in scope.
Rather it is ‘plurilocal’, in the sense that it compares how scientific activity in relation to the
Venus transits unfolded in the Habsburg lands, Denmark-Norway, Sweden and Russia. At the
same time, it examines how astronomical activity in those regions was perceived elsewhere;
that is, in France and Britain in particular. Participation from an individual like Maximilianus
Hell is here only one part of a broader picture, described in contemporaneous texts as the
Respublica litteraria, or ‘Republic of Letters’. The early-modern ideal of a Republic of
Letters implied that knowledge seeking should be a collaborative, supra-national and – in
terms of religious denomination – truly neutral undertaking. It is often claimed by historians
that this ideal was incapable of passing the test of reality. 3 And there is indeed no shortage of
examples of how national, political or confessional antagonisms have prevailed over real
collaboration in science. However, one may argue that the astronomical ‘sub-republic’ of the
wider, cross-disciplinary Republic of Letters offers especially intriguing material in this
respect. Astronomy is a branch of learning that has always been international in its very
nature, in the sense that most astronomical data sets are useless unless compared with
corresponding observations from other sites. A too narrow focus on a specific individual,
region or nation – or sources in just one or two vernaculars – runs the risk of missing that
fact. 4 Hence the broader approach of the present analysis.
3 Examples of scholars arguing for a real ‘Republic of Letters’ during the eighteenth century are Daston 1991;
Bots & Waquet 1997 (in French); Boedecker 2002 (in German). Examples of scholars questioning the historical
reality of this ‘Republic’: Eskildsen 2005 and numerous contributions in Passeron (ed., 2008 [in French]).
4 It may be appropriate here to specify my use of the term ‘international’. Certain historians are inclined to define
this concept quite narrowly, using instead ‘cosmopolitan’ to designate the networks of early-modern – and
modern – astronomers (see for example Sörlin 1993; Ratcliff 2008). I do not find the distinction fruitful.
Accordingly, in this thesis ‘international’ is used quite broadly, as a means of describing contact or impact across
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