The present volume dedicated to Arnold Esch on the occasion of his 65th birthday and retirement from the post of Director of the German Historical Institute in Rome by friends, colleagues and former students from many different countries centres around topics of significance both to the dedicatee himself and the research fields that have benefited from his work: the historian and the present, Rome and the Popes, art and artists, traditions and texts casting light on life and individual destinies on both sides of the Alps. The purview of Arnold Esch's research concerns has always been broad and this is reflected in the range of subjects addressed here: from the Middle Ages to the present, lives and posterities, art and history, economics and archeology. Common to all is the concern with Italy's place within Europe, with emphasis on the concrete and the graphic and the broad perspective, in the way that Esch himself has always preferred. The works in which he has demonstrated this predilection are listed in the catalogue of his writings.