There is an Italian photographer who is the only one, along with Cartier-Bresson, about whom Sir Ernst H. Gombrich wrote, as did Jacques Le Goff; whose pictures Federico Zeri called exceptional; whose poetics Arturo Carlo Quintavalle linked to the staging of sculpture and to the gestures of Kabuki theatre; and who is a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic. And yet the motto nemo propheta in patria fits him perfectly, because in Italy Vasco Ascolini remains little known. This volume gathers his work on the European capitals of culture, museums, theatres and monuments seen as stages of light and shadow.