The morphological scheme devised by Hubble and followers to classify galaxies has proven over many decades to be quite effective in directing our quest for the fundamental pa rameters describing the extragalactic manifold. This statement is however far more true for spirals than for ellipticals. Echoing the concluding remarks in Scott Tremaine's sum mary talk at the Princeton meeting on Structure and Dynamics of Elliptical Galaxies, "the Hubble classification of spirals is useful because many properties of spirals (gas con tent, spiral arm morphology, bulge prominence, etc. ) all correlate with Hubble time. By contrast, almost nothing correlates with the elliptical Hubble sequence El to E7. " During the last few years much effort has been put into the search for a more meaningful classification of ellipticals than Hubble's. Concomitantly, forwarded by some provocative conjectures by R. Michard, the classical question of whether E galaxies form a physically homogeneous family has been brushed up once more. Results of these and other parallel studies look rather promising and point to suture part of the dichotomy between ellipticals and disk galaxies which had become popular in the early eighties, owing to dynamical arguments. At the same time it appears more and more clear that, besides the usual genetic varieties of galaxies, products of environmental evolution must also be contemplated in building our modern picture of the "reign of galaxies" . The above considerations prompted us to solicit Prof."

The idea of holding a colloquium on Schmidt telescopes (techniques and science) originated from the observation that, in the last ten years and in spite of the remarkable developments and achievements in this field of astronomical research, there had been no specific opportunity for the experts to meet together, make the point on the state of the art, discuss and coordinate future plans. Therefore, Prof. L. Rosino, one of the pioneers in the use of wide-field telescopes, driven also by the wish of honouring the over four decades of activity of the Asiago Observatory, proposed to the Executive Committee of the International Astronomical Union to sponsor a colloquium on 'Astronomy with Schmidt type telescopes I to be held at Asiago at the end of the summer of 1983. Details about the composition of the Scientific Organizing Committee and the sponsoring organizations are given in Prof. Rosino's 'Welcome to the Participants * The granting of this proposal was the beginning of a ' number of headaches tor the members of the Local Organizing Committee, R. Barbon, F. Ciatti, P. Rafanelli and myself. If, organlzationwise, the colloquium was successful, this is truly due to the generous efforts of my colleagues of the SOC and to the efficient organization of the Linta Park, the hotel hosting the meeting.

The morphological scheme devised by Hubble and followers to classify galaxies has proven over many decades to be quite effective in directing our quest for the fundamental pa rameters describing the extragalactic manifold. This statement is however far more true for spirals than for ellipticals. Echoing the concluding remarks in Scott Tremaine's sum mary talk at the Princeton meeting on Structure and Dynamics of Elliptical Galaxies, "the Hubble classification of spirals is useful because many properties of spirals (gas con tent, spiral arm morphology, bulge prominence, etc. ) all correlate with Hubble time. By contrast, almost nothing correlates with the elliptical Hubble sequence El to E7. " During the last few years much effort has been put into the search for a more meaningful classification of ellipticals than Hubble's. Concomitantly, forwarded by some provocative conjectures by R. Michard, the classical question of whether E galaxies form a physically homogeneous family has been brushed up once more. Results of these and other parallel studies look rather promising and point to suture part of the dichotomy between ellipticals and disk galaxies which had become popular in the early eighties, owing to dynamical arguments. At the same time it appears more and more clear that, besides the usual genetic varieties of galaxies, products of environmental evolution must also be contemplated in building our modern picture of the "reign of galaxies" . The above considerations prompted us to solicit Prof."