I first came to Erice in 1966, to lecture at the fourth of the annual schools on subnuclear physics organized by Nino Zichichi. I was charmed by the beauty of Erice, fascinated by the thick layers of Sicilian culture and history, and terrified by the iron rule with which Nino kept students and faculty in line. In a word, I was won over, and I returned to Erice every year or two thereafter, to talk of what was past, or passing, or to come, at least insofar as it touched on subnuclear theory. Eight of these lectures, or more properly lecture series, are collected here.

No attempt has been made to bring the lectures up to date. Typographical errors, when spotted, have been corrected, and references to works to be published have been changed to references to published works. (I thank Hugh Osborne for taking on this dull task.) Otherwise, these are unaltered reprints of the original publications.

Numerous debts are acknowledged in the individual lectures, but there is one overriding debt that must be acknowledged here. None of this would have existed were it not for Nino Zichichi. Of course, he is the creator and director of the subnuclear school, and of the International Center for Scientific Culture ‘Ettore Majorana’ which encompasses it, but, more than that, he is personally responsible for each and every one of these lectures.