Meeting Tommaso Romano is like stepping into a kind of fairy tale, and I can’t help but feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland when I visit him at his home and studio in Palermo. But it’s more than just a home or studio – it’s better described as his ‘album of life’.

This is because it’s not merely a place where the professor lives his life as an ordinary mortal – which he is not, as we shall see – but rather a collection of passions transformed into objects of various kinds. These include art and handicrafts; written or illustrated pages; autographs of famous personalities; an array of paintings, statues, books – over fifteen thousand volumes – porcelain, terracotta, and much more.