This conference aims to highlight mankind's path towards an improved knowledge of the sky using mathematical and mechanical tools as well as monuments and buildings, giving rise, in so doing, to scientific astronomy.

It will analyze similarities and differences among cultures and countries in exploiting the shared resource that the sky represents, and will examine the historical-political and scientific background favouring the progress of scientific astronomy in different epochs and countries, progress that led to a crucial turning-point for observational astronomy when Galileo turned the telescope to the night sky and initiated the New Astronomy.

A major aim of the meeting is to help move forward the process of ensuring the recognition and protection of cultural properties around the globe that bear powerful witness to the development of astronomy in diverse cultural contexts.