The work of Herbert List (1903 in Hamburg – 1975 in Munich), whose artistic approach was shaped by the European avantgarde, is in keeping with the pure tradition of the 1930s, combining the formal austerity of Bauhaus with the magic of surrealist inspiration. Often described as the “photographer of silence”1, ruins, bodies and places were key inspirations dispersed throughout his work, through the destroyed Munich of 1945, on the trail of ancient Greece and along many escapades in which Herbert List immortalised snippets of life. It was through his travels, at the beginning of the 1930s, that he discovered Italy, with which he developed a special relationship.