On 10 September 2026, the ‘From the Depths to Space: Exploring to Understand’ event took place in the Sala del Maggior Consiglio at the Palazzo Ducale; it was one of the events in the series Cartography on Display.
From missions to the polar seas to Earth observation from space, right through to the possibility of growing crops beyond our planet: the event brought together different experiences and perspectives to illustrate just how important knowledge of extreme environments is for understanding the present and tackling the challenges of the future.
Speakers included Franco Malerba, Italy’s first astronaut; Maurizio Demarte from the Navy Hydrographic Institute; Emanuele Magi, Head of the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemistry; Gaia Fusco, System and Operations Manager for the European Space Agency’s GENESIS mission (ESA). Also present in the hall were representatives from Space V, a UniGe start-up and spin-off specialising in the cultivation of plants in space (more details here).
Following opening remarks by Giacomo Montanari, a University of Genoa lecturer in Modern Art History and Councillor for Culture for the City of Genoa, and Maria Pia Repetto, Head of the Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering – DICCA. The meeting was chaired by Stefania Traverso, head of the SIT Office at Genoa City Council, and Domenico Sguerso, UniGe lecturer in Geomatics and coordinator of the DICCA Geomatics Laboratory.
The event was organised in collaboration with the Chamber of Commerce and the City of Genoa.