Since 2023, Torre Calderina has also become an astronomical observatory. This might come as a surprise, but the project, initiated by the Municipality of Molfetta, actually harks back to one of the fundamental purposes of watchtowers – observing the night sky. Star observation served the orientation needs of both seafarers and coastal guards.

After all, even today, after millennia of journeys, migrations, and discoveries, celestial navigation remains a crucial resource for those in distress. Knowing the position of the North Star to determine latitude or tracking the Moon's transit to establish one's longitude—these activities, and the technological evolution of the instruments that make them possible, have meant the difference between life and death for generations of human beings.

There is no sea without the sky; there is no navigation without astronomy.

If you like, I'll leave you a moment to reflect with three lines by nineteenth-century poet Giovànni Pàscoli:

The stars shone sparsely
amidst the milk fog;
I felt the rocking of the sea