Maximilian Hell

Maximilian Hell Hell Miksa
Maximilian Hell dressed in Sami clothing during his stay at Vardø in 1769 to observe the Venus transit
Born	(1720-05-15)May 15, 1720 Selmecbánya, Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia)
Died	April 14, 1792(1792-04-14) (aged 71) Vienna
Nationality	Hungarian
Fields	Astronomy

Maximilian Hell (Hungarian: Hell Miksa) (May 15, 1720 – April 14, 1792) was a Hungarianastronomer and an ordained Jesuit priest from the Kingdom of Hungary.

Born as Rudolf Maximilian Höll in Selmecbánya, Kingdom of Hungary (present-day Banská Štiavnica, Slovakia)., but later changed his surname to Hell. He was the third son from the second marriage of his father Matthias Cornelius Hell (Matthäus Kornelius Hell) and his mother Julianna Staindl. The couple had a total of 22 children. Registry entries indicate that the family was of German descent, while Maximilian Hell later in life (ca 1750) is known to declare himself as Hungarian.

The place of birth of Maximilian's father is unknown; the settlements Körmöcbánya (today Kremnica), Schlagenwald, (today Horní Slavkov) or Schlackenwerth (today Ostrov nad Ohří) are most frequently given. Born in a mixed German, Hungarian and Slovak town, he presumably knew Slovak to a certain extent and he probably understood Hungarian, but his mother tongue was German. Even so, Hell considered himself a Hungarian. Hell with another Jesuit priest, János Sajnovics tried to explore the already widely discussed but insufficiently documented affinity between the language of the Sami, Finns and the Hungarians during and after their residency in Vardø. (Demonstratio idioma Ungarorum et Lapponum idem esse, 1770 Copenhagen)