Starting on the 10th of June, 1986, the staid and quiet halls and courtyard and corridors, including the giant circular staircase designed by Bernini for the little donkeys that carried Popes to their quarters in the summer palace, echoed to the swift patter of lightfooted students and the buzz of their conversations as 17 young men and 8 young women met at the first Vatican Observatory Summer School in Astronomy and Astrophysics at Castel Gandolfo.

These 25 scholars had been chosen from a list of 135 candidates at university and graduate school campuses all over this planet. More than 30 candidates were rejected for “excellence”; they were judged to be too far advanced for admission to the classes on Galaxies and Dark Matter and to those on Spectral Classification and on Instrumentation for Photometry and Image Processing. The classes were aimed at students just beginning or planning immediate entrance into graduate level classes; the School was not planned for “new Ph.D.s,” for “post-docs,” or for those already well into thesis work. Criteria for admission included academic grades, recommendations of university professors, plus personal statements from the candidates on reasons why they felt they wanted to attend the sessions of the school. Applications were studied by faculty and staff members and results were announced in January, giving students some four months to arrange their travel and home commitments so they could be free to respond to the school bells on June 10.