Speaker
Description
In 1684, Johannes Hevelius, an astronomer from Gdańsk, honored Jan III Sobieski, the King of Poland, by naming a new constellation Scutum Sobiescianum – after the King's coat of arms. This fact was commemorated at that time in several poems which can be found in the collection of Hevelius's astronomical correspondence. They are examples of non-scientific endeavors originating from astronomical studies.
Poems, preserved both in manuscripts and as published pamphlets, were authored mostly by people from Gdańsk. Among their authors, there were notable individuals with whom Hevelius corresponded (e.g. Michał Antoni Hacki, the Abbot of the Oliwa Monastery near Gdańsk), the astronomer's learned colleagues (e.g. Adam Adamandus Kochański, a Jesuit mathematician), and professional poets (e.g. Johann Peter Titius (Titz), the professor of poetry at the gymnasium academicum in Gdańsk). They praise – in varying degrees – the King and his constellation, and the astronomer who proposed it.
In my paper, I will discuss the poems and their function in the corpus of Hevelius's letters. I will attempt to determine their role in the astronomer's pursuit of royal patronage. I will analyze the literary tropes in these works, the extent of astronomical knowledge they contain, and how the former relate to Hevelius’s astronomical studies.
Short Biography
Maciej Jasiński, PhD (ORCID 0000-0002-3484-4039, email: mjasinski@ihnpan.pl) –historian of science and neo-Latinist, assistant professor at the L. & A. Birkenmajer Institute for the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences (Warsaw, Poland). His research interests include early modern scholarly communication and astronomical ideas in non-scientific contexts. He is a participant of the international project of publication of the correspondence of Johannes Hevelius. His most important publications are: "The Correspondence of Michał Antoni Hacki and Johannes Hevelius" ("Odrodzenie i Reformacja w Polsce" ["Renaissance and Reformation in Poland"], 2023 vol. 67, p. 199–230, https://doi.org/10.12775/OiRwP.2023.07); "The Correspondence of Johannes Hevelius", vol. 4, "the Correspondence with Stanisław Lubieniecki" (Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2021); "Otto von Guericke's Cometary Theory in Stanisław Lubieniecki’s Correspondence" ("Journal for the History of Astronomy", 2020, vol. 51, no. 2, p. 131–151, https://doi.org/10.1177/0021828619891273).
| Keywords | History of astronomy, scholarly communication, patronage, history of constellations |
|---|---|
| mjasinski@ihnpan.pl | |
| Affiliation | Institute for the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences |
| Position | assistant professor |
