Invited by the University of Siena, Noam Chomsky spent the month of November 1999 at the Certosa di Pontignano, a fourteenth-century monastery and now a research facility of the University. It was an extraordinarily intense and exciting month, in which faculty and students of the University of Siena had a unique opportunity to come in close contact with different aspects of Chomsky's work, discuss science and politics with him, exchange and sharpen ideas and projects, and interact with him in many ways. The texts collected in this volume are related to activities that took place in connection with this visit.

The first chapter provides an introduction to some basic concepts of linguistic theory and to some elements of the history of the field which are crucial for understanding certain theoretical questions addressed in the following chapters.

The second chapter is related to a particular occasion. Chomsky's sojourn in Siena was organized twenty years after his visit to the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa, an event which, through the memorable Pisa Lectures, has profoundly influenced the field of theoretical linguistics ever since. In connection with this anniversary, Chomsky received, on October 27, 1999, the “Perfezionamento honoris causa,” the honorary degree delivered by the Scuola Normale Superiore. In that occasion, he gave the Galileo Lecture “Perspectives on Language and Mind,” which traces central ideas of current scientific linguistics and of the modern cognitive sciences to their roots in classical thought, starting with Galileo Galilei's famous praise of the “marvelous invention,”alphabetic writing, which allows us to communicate with other people, no matter how distant in space and time.