The original plans for a meeting to celebrate the second centenary of the As- tronomical Observatory of Palermo were for a celebration with a double character. The gathering was to have both a historical character, appropriate for a bicenten- nial, and a technical character, to note and chronicle the new phase of the history of the Observatory, which has prospered in parallel with the development of this fairly recent topic in astronomical research, the physics of stellar and solar coronae. After the untimely death of the Observatory's Director, Giuseppe S. Vaiana (Pippo to his many friends),...