The soft power of a State is the image that it gives of itself to others, filled with its ideals and values, its language and its knowledge. Culture, in its broadest declination, in this sense proves to be a relevant diplomatic tool in the foreign policy of a State. This can affirm its presence, preserve its identity, develop forms of solidarity, promote political objectives through the influence of the international public. Italian cultural diplomacy in the years of the Cold War represented itself as a particular “operational path” in the wider range of foreign policy choices of our country, sometimes anticipating the aims and objectives of so-called “traditional” diplomacy. Culture offered Italy an additional perspective in terms of international dialogue, acting as a privileged channel for relations that would otherwise be difficult to negotiate during the second half of the twentieth century, marked by bipolar conflict. In its tension towards peace and stability, with its constant reference to the rights and values of democracy, Italian cultural diplomacy has also been able to boast a non-secondary contribution in the transition from the international dynamics marked by the Cold War to the determination of post-bipolar international relations.