Maximilianus Hell (1720-1792) - Munin

Vienna and various Italian territories may also have influenced the Imperial Astronomer‟s
account. By contrast, activities in eastern Europe are not extolled at all. Thus, the printed
report by a Catholic professor at the Kraków Academy is dismissed as “highly imperfect”
(“valde imperfecta”). 89 In Russia, a correspondent of Hell‟s, Josephus Adamus Braun,
provided data from his own private observation as well as observations made at the Imperial
Observatory in Saint Petersburg. The French presence is highly marked, but here the Jesuit
contribution is not highlighted as much as in the Italian and German Assistancies. The two
non-Catholic countries Sweden and England are surprisingly well represented in Hell‟s report.
Information concerning the English observations had been assembled by the Swedish
astronomer Bengt Ferner, who was in Paris at the time. 90 He sent extracts from his
correspondence with English astronomers to Hell, who included these extracts in his report.
Information on the Swedish observations had taken another detour, to Hell‟s correspondent
Lacaille in Paris. The section on observations from Stockholm was based entirely upon a
letter from Lacaille and an article in the Journal Étranger of Paris.
One may conclude, then, that the Jesuit network was indeed helpful in establishing Father
Hell as an astronomer of international reputation. His connections in the Italian and German
Assistancies were generally quite good and helpful in providing him with a considerable
number of observations for his Venus transit report. Abroad, his contacts were still developing
as of 1761. His conspicuous status as the Imperial and Royal Astronomer of the Habsburg
territories probably counted more than his adherence to the Jesuit order, when astronomers in
places like Saint Petersburg and Paris took the bother of providing him with observations for
his journal. It is the combination of the two roles – Jesuit and court astronomer – that gave
Hell such a prominent position in the Venus transit project of 1761.
89 The report in question was surely Jacobus Niegowiecki‟s Transitus Veneris per discum Solis post peractas
revolutiones tam synodicas quàm periodicas intrà annos circiter 122. iterum anno domini 1761. die 6. Junii.
celebratus et per mathematicos universitatis Cracoviensis sub elevatione poli gr. 50. min. 12. observatus,
Cracoviae 1761 (title taken from the online catalogue of the BibliotheksVerbund Bayern). An interesting survey
in English of the history of astronomy in early-modern Poland has been provided by Bieńkowska 1972 (see pp.
88-89 on Niegowiecki).
90 Ferner was later nobled Ferrner. In the Ephemerides, his name is misspelled “Fermer”. At least by May 1761,
he was a correspondent of Hell‟s (cf. Ferrner 1956, pp. 388-390).
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