There is no figure or moment in Italian history and society that the makers of the Publifoto agency did not record. A prominent place belongs to the Sanremo song festival, documented in fifteen thousand frames.

This volume presents a selection of about fifty images covering the first twenty-five years of one of the country's most popular events, born in 1951, bringing out both its artistic importance and its social meaning — above all through the most unexpected situations, away from the stage. Television material from the Rai archives accompanies the sequence.