  We reconstruct the history of the cosmic star formation as well as the cosmic
production of metals in the universe by means of detailed chemical evolution
models for galaxies of different morphological types. We consider a picture of
coeval, non-interacting evolving galaxies where ellipticals experience intense
and rapid starbursts within the first Gyr after their formation, and spirals
and irregulars continue to form stars at lower rates up to the present time. We
show that spirals are the main contributors to the decline of the luminosity
density in all bands between z=1 and z=0.
