Editor's Note

The papers printed in this special issue were first presented orally at the conference over The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena, which took place at the Villa Mondo Migliore, Rocca di Papa, Italy, from 27 June-2 July 1994. Under the auspices of the Vatican Observatory, a distinguished group of scholars (historians of art and of science, philosophers of science, painters, sculptors, musicians, workers in the fields of the belles lettres, theologians, a few astronomers, and at least one physicist) met for four whole- and two half-days of living under the same roof, eating in the same dining hall, and vocally interacting in the meeting rooms of the conference. The conversations were lively, and full of newly discovered appreciations concerning other people's points of view. We were dazzled by John David Mooney's own vision--as revealed to us in an array of his original works splashed over the Papal Garden and along the North wall of the smaller telescope dome on top of the Papal Palace at Castel Gandolfo--as well as the special visit to the Vatican Library and Museums and our viewing, at the latter place, of the display of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

So much went on that we have been unable to do full justice to all the papers and posters that were presented at this first assembly: there simply hasn't been sufficient space for all of the material. Therefore, the editorial committee had to make some hard decisions. First, none of the display materials were converted into printed papers. Second, many of the papers with subjects more allied to the fine arts have been offered to the editor of the Pergamon/Elsevier periodical Leonardo [N.B.: the peridodical is now -- 4 March 1998 -- published by the M.I.T. Press] for subsequent publication (all registered participants will receive a copy of the specific issue of Leonardo which contains the INSAP papers). Third, when there was still not enough room in this journal to print the papers that remained, the Editorial Committee selected those documents which were felt best to have represented the philosophical foci of this first outing. However, the abstracts for all of the presentations will be found in the back pages of this issue (a complete and up-to-date--15 February 1995--list of participants' addresses is also appended).
Inevitably, many will disagree with the choices that were made. To those, we cheerfully invite them to serve on the next organizational committee(s) and to serve on the subsequent editorial board(s). Fallibility is the province of us all.

I would like to offer sincere thanks to the staff of the Villa Mondo Migliore who suffered the presence of too many absent-minded professors with great good humor and vigorous fingerwagging! Next time if we haven't already over-stayed our welcome we'll have the meal ticket distribution and accounting organized much more efficiently to say nothing of accurately.

Raymond E. White
North-American Editor for Vistas In Astronomy

Links to Other Pages
Go to the INSAP homepage
Go to the First INSAP Conference page
Go to the Second INSAP Conference page
Go to introductory note and welcome by G.V. Coyne, S.J.
Go to Introduction, by R.M. Sinclair
Go to "Table of Contents" for Vistas in Astronomy 39(4)
Go to Amy Sandback's Prologue to the Leonardo papers
Go to "Table of Contents" for Leonardo 29(2)
Go to an album of photos taken during the First Conference

This page modified on: 25 March 2007