The 150 Italians project was set up in order to celebrate the Italians to whom we are grateful. Throughout 2010, the Italians of today have voted for the Italians of yesterday on the site www.150italiani.it : musicians, writers, mathematicians, engineers, painters, philosophers, singers, actors, cooks and many other the Italians, male and female, from the most disparate fields, who have done something extraordinary and who deserve to be remembered. By the end, there were hundreds of names. We have only excluded living people and those with too political an identity: the idea being to unite rather than to divide. The 150 who received the most votes make up the collection.