Metals in supramolecular chemistry

Metals have played a fundamental role in the development of supramolecular chemistry. The main steps taken from the pre-supramolecular age to the present time are retraced with a brief description of salient examples from the unconscious use of gold nanoparticle in the preparation of the Lycurgus cup (5th or 4th century B.C.) to the modern use of metals as templates, for the preparation of large self-assembled structures, of molecular sensors, switches, motors and machines, for mimicking biological processes, for tissue and organ imaging or for the application of the Boolean logic at the molecular level.