Indeed, such mysteries were among the principal subjects of a preconcert conversation at Columbia University's Italian Academy on July 21 between music critic Paul Griffiths and cellist Frances-Marie Uitti, who then performed Scelsi's suite for solo cello, Trilogy: The Three Ages of Man (1957/65).

Poggio is a Foreign Member of the Italian Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

That such neurobiology might offer a new science of art was the premise of "Art and the New Biology of Mind," a conference held this past spring under the auspices of the Italian Academy at Columbia University in New York, bringing together a distinguished roster of scientists and artists in a daylong colloquy on the relationship between recent advances in neuroscience and the visual arts.