Fullerenes are all carbon molecular cages which constitute the 4th allotropic form of carbon, after amorfous, graphite, and diamond. Fullerenes were discovered in 1985 by H. Kroto (University of Sussex, U.K.), R. Smalley, and R. Curl (both at Rice University, Houston, USA) while trying to reproduce in the laboratory the conditions allowing the formation of carbon clusters in the interstellar space. Thanks to their discovery they were awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemisty. The production and purification of gram scale quantities of fullerenes in the laboratory, was achieved by Huffman and coworkers at the University of Arizona in 1990. This was the beginning of a huge research effort worldwide, which embraces several fields of chemistry, biology, and materials science and are focussed, in particular, on the most common fullerenes i.e. C₆₀ and C₇₀(below) and their functionalised derivatives. C60 C70 Our Group has been involved in fullerene research since the second half of 1990's. In particular we are interested in the optical and photophysical properties of functionalised C₆₀'s and their use as active units in multicomponent arrays featuring photoinduced energy- and electron transfer processes. The work of our group in the field of fullerene chemistry has got an outstanding citation record in the international literature. These achievements have been made possible also thanks to a number of international collaborations with other research groups and thanks to financial support of the European Commission through the Research Training Network "Famous". For more information visit Nicola Armaroli's webpage.