At the end of 2006, Italian photographer Armin Linke was commissioned by the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities to realize a reportage. For this commission, the artist proposed a photographic mapping of all the institutions housed in various historical buildings in Rome. His research attempted to carry out both a documentation of and an inquiry into the characteristics of public institutions. The result is a portrait of the Italian State through the understanding of the architectures in which functions and ceremonies are performed daily. * * Including excerpts from Giorgio Agamben's recent book "Il Regno e la Gloria," the publication invites a critical reading of the representation of power, while displaying very rarely seen interiors and details of the government's settings in an objective style typical of Linke's images. * * The book is published with the support of MAXXI, Roma. *