The Evolution of The Milky Way

This book contains the proceedings of the meeting held in the lovely island of Vulcano, close to the noth coast of Sicily (ltaly) on September 20-24, 1999. Vlllcano is one of the group called Eolian islands. The name derives from the fact that the island is a volcano, and legend says that it was inhabited by the greek god Volcano.
The subject of the conference was "The Chemical Evolution of the Milky Way : Stars versus Clusters". This colIoquium was a project devised by a group of italian astronomers (Franco Giovannelli, Francesca Matteucci and Sergio Or- tolani) together with Beatriz Barbuy (Brazil) and R.M. Rich (U.S.A.), on the hasis of the fact that alI of them actively work in the field and that the last meeting, held in Italy on this subject, was the Elba meeting in 1989 on "Chem- ical and Dynamical Evolution of Galaxies". The reason for having the meeting in Vulcano was that the Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale (Tor Vergata, Roma) has a long tradition of organizing astronomic al meetings in Vulcano at the pleasant Eolian Hotel, which provides a secluded, beautiful and relaxing environment.